


Our Path is Crooked, But True

by ncfan



Series: Femslash Big Bang [21]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bechdel Test Pass, Bittersweet Ending, But not large enough of a presence to get tags, Crimson Flower Route, Crushes, Developing Relationship, Disturbing Themes, F/F, Femslash Big Bang Monthly Challenge, Femslash February, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Gen, Introspection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Female Character, Pining, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Trauma, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, explores the implications and fallout of Ingrid's paralogue, other characters have cameos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 160,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22486138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: What do you do, when you discover the world is not what you thought it was? When your family is not what you thought it was? Whenyouare not what you thought you were? Ingrid had not thought that coming to study at the Officers Academy would ever see her asking herself such questions, but rarely has she ever been provided clear portents of the future.And another thing: should it be you who is changed, wrought into what the world meant for you to be, or should the world change, instead?
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Series: Femslash Big Bang [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/953061
Comments: 96
Kudos: 183
Collections: Femslash Big Bang, Femslash February





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> [ **CN/TW** : brief, non-explicit description of genocide; undercurrents of classism; misogyny and internalized misogyny; struggles with gender roles]

Once upon a time, there was a princess. Like many princesses, she was in a tower, though the tower was of a different shape and composition than you might expect. It moved where she moved, and was invisible to the naked eye. Over the years, it shrank and shrank until it had refashioned itself into the dimensions of her own body. She moved in the same sphere as her peers, and was yet unreachable, for she was penned in by bars of iron and walls of stone. There would come the day of reckoning, come the day when cold stone would hear the song of hammers and tremble in its foundations, but not today. Today, the princess in her tower navigated the world of her jailors, bided her time, and let each and every one of them think she was their creature, the better to hide the fire in her eyes.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was a lord’s daughter—a lady, we suppose. Like many ladies, she was a damsel, though she took care to be rarely in any sort of distress that would have required rescuing. The lady longed to leave her obligations behind her and take on new ones in their place, longed to cloak herself in the vows sworn by a knight, but one of the first lessons she had ever learned in life were that her natal obligations were not so easily left by the wayside. Duty bound her to them, and love also, and chains they might have been, but for love’s sake, she could pretend that they were something else. So she tried to make herself into a lady, for all that the chains were ill-fitting and pinched her skin and jangled at just the moment when she was starting to forget about them. She was a dutiful daughter, a loving daughter, but being a lady did not come naturally to her, and the shadow of a lady’s obligations dogged her steps even when the sun sailed high in the sky overhead.

To each of them, the world seemed such a different place, seen through such different eyes, but when shadows touched them, they felt just the same disquiet.

-

Ingrid had been maybe five or six years old when she first began training with a practice sword. Felix had been training with one since he was old enough to walk, and the same went for Ingrid’s older brothers, but for her, there had been no automatic assumption of training upon her gaining steady legs for walking with.

She had wanted it—it was something she had had to want, in order for it to be hers. The stories her parents had read to her since before she could remember were the songs that sang in her blood, the stars that lit the skies of her dreams. For as long as she could remember, she had watched her brothers at their training with longing and envy, and the longer time wore on without her father summoning her to the training yard to begin to learn the sword herself, the more envy itched under Ingrid’s skin like a rash.

Her mother pursed her lips in surprised displeasure when Ingrid asked her parents about it, but her father laughed and nodded his head indulgently.

“She may well be wed to another border lord,” Ingrid could hear Father telling Mother, “or one of the ones who holds the western coast. It will do our Ingrid well to know how best to defend herself if she must hold the castle in her husband’s absence.”

 _That’s not why I want to learn_! Ingrid would always protest in her child’s voice, and it would be years, would take her voice deepening to a woman’s voice in a child’s body, before Father would stop laughing indulgently, and he would look at her, considering and troubled, instead.

You must be able to defend yourself, Mother would say, always. You must be able to defend yourself, Ingrid; that much I must concede. This world is not a kind place, she would say, her face full of the lines that formed in her skin when she was thinking of the world that lied beyond their family’s keep, and the town that girded its walls. But this is not who you are, Ingrid; it cannot be who you are. Your duties lie elsewhere; your path takes you elsewhere. When you wet your blade with blood, it shall not be on a battlefield. The Goddess be merciful to us, you shall never wet your blade at all, but should She withhold that mercy, you will wet it when your husband’s keep has been overrun and you must defend yourself or be carried off, or killed. The path that you are trying to walk, it is not yours. You must seek for and find the one that is.

 _This is my path_ —the words were engraved on Ingrid’s heart, weeping blood without end, but they were never painted in bloody letters in the air before her mouth. Ingrid could not recall just when she noticed her family’s pinched cheeks, their eyes always bright with hunger, but she had always known that their faces were not like hers, and something about that knowledge had stopped the words cold in her mouth.

-

“That maid is new,” Ingrid muttered to Sylvain one day, on one of the rare occasions her family had to make the journey north to visit House Gautier ensconced in their battle-scarred keep. Ingrid was growing older, her body starting to lose some of its childish roundness, and while she would never have a collection of lady’s graces fit to please her mother, she did at least endeavor to remember the faces and the names of the servants in all the places she visited. She could not be graceful, but she could at least be _gracious_.

There was a maid missing, a girl some years older than Ingrid herself, by the name of Yvette. No one else seemed to think it strange—Ingrid could not remember either of her parents, not even her mother, making comment on Yvette’s absence. And now this new one in her place, a furtive, twitchy little thing who avoided everyone’s gaze to an even greater extent than was typical for the servants in the Gautier’s home.

Perhaps Yvette had simply taken ill, or a family member had taken ill and she had gone home to nurse them—Ingrid’s mother went home to nurse her brother or sister-in-law often enough, so that was hardly outside the realms of possibility. Truth be told, Ingrid could not remember her parents ever taking that much notice of the servants of this house, and Ingrid herself was far more familiar with the grooms and the farriers down in the tables, than she was with the cooks or the porters or Margravine Gautier’s attendants or, indeed, the maids who kept the keep clean of dirt and other debris. But though this keep was a large one, it was not so large that, after a few days in it, she wouldn’t notice the absence of a formerly familiar face.

(She’d seen neither hide nor hair of Miklan, and that was not so strange, honestly. Ingrid had been perhaps five years old the last time she could remember him standing out with the rest of his family while the greetings were given. Since then, he haunted the Gautier’s keep more like a ghost than like their eldest son—sitting below the salt, far from the head of the table where his parents and younger brother sat; standing at the edge of the forest yards and yards off as the hunting parties made for the woods; the shadow that gathered at the end of long hallways when Ingrid happened to leave a room. She could not remember his family ever bringing him south when they made trips to the Fraldarius or Galatea territories.)

“Yeah, she is,” Sylvain muttered back. It was only then that it occurred to Ingrid to wonder just _why_ they were muttering—there was no one standing nearby them in the great hall, as everyone else had already had their meal and left—but Sylvain was speaking again before she could really put any more thought into it: “My parents hired her on after Yvette got kicked out.”

Ingrid frowned at this, brow furrowed in confusion. She would be a liar to say she knew Yvette very well, and even had she lived in this place all her life, she was not fool enough as to believe there were not parts of themselves that servants kept hidden from their noble masters. She thought of all that she kept within herself, away from prying eyes. Yes, she could well believe that Yvette, for however little she knew the older girl, might have things she kept locked away. But still, she had never seen anything in Yvette’s conduct that would warrant removal from her post…

Sylvain had taken her silence for a question, and shrugged. “She got pregnant.”

Ingrid had not, before this point, known if Yvette was married, and this, she supposed, provided the answer to a question she had never really asked herself. And that would have been the end of her wondering—sexual misconduct of such a nature and with such consequences was certainly an offense that warranted dismissal in every civilized place that Ingrid could put a name to—if not for something she inadvertently bore witness to the next time she visited, a little over a year later.

There was no sign of the girl, whose name Ingrid now knew to be Lydie, who had been hired on to replace Yvette, and this time, when asked, Sylvain would provide no answer. The longer silence persisted, the more suspicious Ingrid became—of Sylvain, mostly, for of late he had been oddly twitchy and watchful, altogether unlike his normal self and to Ingrid it spoke of guilt, and she could guess at no alternative explanation for it.

Ingrid got no answer from anyone else, either. The other servants in the keep would not speak of what had become of Lydie, Ingrid sincerely doubted that either of her parents would have known, and at the thought of asking either of Sylvain’s parents, either her courage failed her or her good manners prevailed—she was not sure which was truer. She was almost at the point of tracking down Miklan and asking _him_ what was going on, which, considering the way her last conversation with Miklan had gone, would likely have been both unproductive and deeply unpleasant (and possibly violent), until one day, while Ingrid was reading in the shade of a spruce tree near the back gate of the keep, she saw something she did not expect. Something she very much doubted she had been meant to see at all.

The area around the back gate was very quiet, which was why she had chosen it as where she would spend her precious spare time. Rare for the fortresses of Faerghus, especially those who played host to the ruling families, the Gautier’s ancestral castle was not associated with any town. Ingrid was not sure what it was—perhaps it was the castle’s proximity to the border with Sreng, or the fact that this had always been, first and foremost, a military outpost, and were it to become a significant civilian population center, it would only present a more tempting target to raiders from across the border.

But even that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Ingrid, since even the likes of Arianrhod and, according to her lessons, Fort Merceus in the south, contained towns within their walls, and those two were considered the most impressive fortifications in Fódlan. And of course, her books wouldn’t just _tell_ her why there was no town to support the castle, because the people who wrote those books had considered such a question not important enough to answer.

Beyond the back gate, there was a hard-packed dirt path that Ingrid thought led to a village, maybe a few miles away. The window in the bedchamber that had been assigned to her looked out on that path, and when night fell over the mountains, Ingrid could see lights glimmering off in the distance, the gentle golden glow of torches, occasionally pocked with the red pulse of a bonfire. Ingrid would not be surprised if that was where a lot of the civilian staff in the castle came from—that, or the village she and her parents had passed through on their way here, some ten miles south.

But Ingrid had never seen someone on that path out of the back gate. Not until today.

At the sound of a commotion erupting back at the castle, Ingrid looked up from her reading, frowning. When her eyes lit on the source of the noise, she froze.

Ingrid did not have much to do with Margravine Gautier. Sylvain and Miklan’s mother had come from a powerful family based near Fhirdiad, and Ingrid had always gotten the impression that, on top of a disdain for House Galatea’s poverty, the margravine regarded Ingrid’s house as being entirely too new to be worth associating with. Well, Ingrid was entirely too happy to oblige her—it was awkward enough to spend supper _knowing_ the woman was staring down her nose at Ingrid’s shabby dresses or the training clothes Ingrid hadn’t had time to change out of before supper without spending any more time with her than was necessary.

However, Ingrid knew Margravine Gautier well enough to recognize her at a glance, so when Ingrid caught sight of her dragging a struggling girl across the deserted green, she could not help but take notice.

And there was no mistaking it. It was her.

“I do not suffer whores in my house,” the margravine snapped, as she dragged the girl ever closer to the gate. She waved a hand to the gatekeeper, who opened the gate out on that hard-packed dirt path and the patchy forest that swallowed it up. “Be glad of my mercy, you wretch; I could have done far worse with you.”

A thin, warbling cry hit the air, but it came from neither the margravine, nor the girl. Instead, it came from a bundle the girl was holding in her arms, clutched tightly to her chest.

“Milord will not—“

Lydie, the girl was Lydie. But Ingrid could do nothing with this revelation, for the margravine was speaking once more.

“ _Milord_ will scarcely notice you’re gone, now that he knows your brat has not given him what he wants.” Margravine Gautier scoffed loudly, and from what had become Ingrid’s hiding place, she could make out a coldly furious glitter in her brown eyes, like a knife blade cut from ice. “He’ll have a new whore in his bed in a fortnight, and _you_ will never enter his thoughts again. Now _away_ with you—“ she shoved Lydie through the open gate “—before I reconsider the mercy of my choice.”

As the gate closed, Ingrid could hear a harsh sob shiver the air.

After that, she thought she understood Sylvain’s silence a little better.

-

“Let’s be frank.”

Glenn was always frank, and later, when he was gone, his brother would adopt his frankness and give it an edge, and Ingrid would see ghosts and wish to see nothing at all, if she could see only Felix where Felix stood. ( _Give it time. Just—give it time._ ) Glenn was always frank, and occasionally the results of his frankness made Ingrid want to hit him over the head with her wooden training sword; Lord Rodrigue had said more than once that he was hard-headed enough to walk away from a mountain falling on him without effect, so Ingrid doubted such would actually _hurt_ him. After a training bout that had seen Ingrid win some bruises to make sleep a chore and had won Glenn absolutely none that Ingrid could see or guess at, making a hollow note upon his head with the flat of a wooden sword was sounding pretty attractive.

 _Unladylike_ , her mother would have scolded, as she called this whole endeavor in what felt like increasingly loud tones with each day that passed. Mother had been making noises about dancing and sewing and music-making being more appropriate pastimes for a young lady of Ingrid’s age. And it wouldn’t have been so bad, Ingrid thought—there were plenty of knights in her cherished tales who danced and made music, and if sewing was a good enough skill for a surgeon, it was good enough for her—if it wasn’t accompanied by the judgment that the things that she _did_ love were wrong for her. In the face of that, the things that were now being pressed towards her as _appropriate_ and _wise_ just grated against her skin like sandpaper, as if she’d put on a cilice adorned with briars. She did not want what was _appropriate_ and _wise_ in the face of forsaking what she loved, did not want the shame that burned up in her at the thought of disappointing her parents, did not want the disappointment, did not want anything at all, nothing that she recognized.

 _Unkind_ , her father would have admonished, and that was true enough. You should not go knocking people’s heads with the flat of wooden swords, no matter what provocation they have offered. No matter how sweet the hollow note would sound.

(But she was not kind, was she? She gave her mother grief with her ways. A kind daughter would not have done that. A dutiful daughter would have cleaved to what pastimes her mother deemed appropriate for her. A dutiful daughter would not have wanted for anything other than that in the first place.

Her skin fit less comfortably with each passing year.)

“Alright,” Ingrid said, and tried not to wonder if Glenn’s head would have made a noise like a bell. “Let’s be frank.”

Glenn sighed, putting his hands on his hips and nodding choppily. (Well, if Ingrid hadn’t landed any bruises, she’d at least managed to wind him. She would take her minor victories where she could find them.) “You’ll likely never be strong enough to handle the heavier weapons,” he said bluntly, mouth twisting to one side in something not quite a grimace.

There was that frankness, of the sort that made the idea of becoming a musician momentarily so attractive. Ingrid swallowed her retorts. They were suitable neither to a lady, nor to a knight, and Ingrid’s father had concluded negotiations with Lord Rodrigue earlier this month. Regardless of the example set by many of the married couples Ingrid had been in proximity of over the course of her life, she was aware of the accepted wisdom regarding husbands and wives.

No arguing, no defiance. Sometimes, Ingrid wondered how long that was going to last once they were actually married. Glenn could argue with a fencepost, and he always seemed at least a little disappointed when the fencepost didn’t grow a mouth and start arguing back. And Ingrid…

Well, she didn’t think herself argumentative, not exactly. (She’d been getting more practice, of late, and she’d be lying if she said she had much joy of the experience.) But Ingrid was finding docile silence more and more difficult, and she did not think she could live her whole life conceding.

For now, though, this was the criticism of a far more experienced sparring partner, and he wasn’t finished yet. She could hold her tongue.

“If I had to guess, this is about as tall as you’re ever going to get, and most women don’t really gain the bulk to be swinging a claymore around without a lot of trouble. Well—“ he paused, and frowned. “—Cassandra could.”

“Cassandra’s not here anymore,” Ingrid pointed out. That had been… She didn’t think often about how long ago that had been. Didn’t like to think about it at all.

(What to do, when a local legend goes and does _that_? No vows of knighthood did she swear, and yet the events sparked a feeling of wrongness in Ingrid that she could only associate with the news of a knight forswearing their vows: sun had gone down in the east and risen in the west, water was flowing uphill, the dead were scratching their way out of their graves.)

He sighed. “No. No, she’s not. Let’s not speak of her, then. Ingrid…” He paused once more, drumming his fingers against the hilt of his training sword. The hesitation was uncharacteristic, and Ingrid began to feel his hesitation curdle into trepidation in her gut. “You can train and train all you like, and more likely than not you’ll never gain the bulk you’d need to handle heavier weapons without being weighed down—and you can just _forget_ about plate armor. _I_ don’t bother with that, most of the time; just when I’m traveling with the king and the knights need to look good.”

Ingrid eyed him dubiously. “Plate armor doesn’t weigh _you_ down, surely.”

Glenn laughed bitterly, before going to put away his training sword and sit down on the bench at the edge of the training grounds. “I’ve got a long way to go before I’m strong enough to fight without feeling all of that weight—and I’m like you; like as not, I’ll never gain the bulk I’d need to be able to shrug off the weight of all that steel.”

Lips pursed, Ingrid approached, putting up her own training sword. As she drew closer, she could catch the slight tension in his shoulders, and the trepidation in her gut tightened. Glenn had been a fixture in her life for as long as she could remember—in her earliest memories, his face was as likely to appear as the faces of her older brothers—and she thought that, by now, she could recognize his moods. She only half-recognized this one.

As soon as it was revealed to her, Glenn pulled the lid down over it again. “Felix might be able to do something with that that I can’t,” he said frankly, and Ingrid had never known Glenn to spare himself any more than he spared her. “I lack his advantage, and thus, I train.”

She knew. She’d seen, she’d heard, knew just how likely it was that a son of the Kingdom’s highest nobility would be betrothed to the daughter of a house that, while noble, was new and impoverished. Under normal circumstances, anyways. And under normal circumstances, the highest member of the Kingdom’s nobility would not have allowed his eldest son to pledge his life to the king as a knight, no matter the friendship between that nobleman and that king, but these were not normal circumstances, were they?

( _So much of our value owes to what flows beneath our skin._ Ingrid’s blood would always be more valuable than what skill she could achieve with a sword. And when it was spilled, in battle or in childbirth, would the ordeals that brought her to that point be counted valuable as well?)

The urge to give comfort painted the roof of her mouth with bitterness, as it must when Ingrid knew not what to say, but Glenn did not leave her to stew in that for long. As if he’d never said aught of himself, he went on, matter-of-factly, “You shouldn’t look to heavier weapons when you fight. You’re already pretty fast, at least when you’re sparring, and I think you could get faster with more training.” He looked off in the general direction of the stables, mouth quirked in something close to a smile. “Especially if you’re still serious about that pegasus.”

“His name,” Ingrid corrected, uncommonly primly, “is Kyphon.”

This earned her a bark of laughter. “His name is ‘Hay fever,’ and I will accept _no_ alternatives. Alright, that’s enough for today. Remember what I told you: stick to lighter weapons; you need to capitalize on your speed over relying on brute strength.” He sprang to his feet, heading for the door with an alacrity Ingrid was not accustomed to outside of those occasions when they were late for supper or Glenn had realized he’d forgotten to pack his things. “And don’t forget to do those cool-down exercises I showed you! You’ll be begging for death tomorrow morning if you don’t do them.”

And with that, he was gone, and the question that had started to burn like a hot coal in Ingrid’s mouth was free to burn some more. Oh, burn up my whole mouth, if you don’t mind. It’s not like I needed that tongue.

-

There were stories of lady knights; the library in House Galatea’s estate was not an expansive one, but even it contained tomes that told tales of lady knights. No one had ever kept these tales from Ingrid, not even after her father had ceased to treat her interests with indulgence and started to regard it with uneasy consideration instead.

Ingrid had been raised on tales of lady knights, though they were few and far between when held up in comparison with tales of knights who were also men. Most of these tales ended with the lady knight dying in battle, or else laying down her arms, wedding a lord or a king, and giving that man healthy sons who would be knights for all their lives. Ingrid could remember one where the lady knight served her liege lord for all of her days, and in that case the poem from which this lady knight originated took pains to periodically remind the reader that she was barren and could give no man any sons to carry on his name. When she read the tales, it was the meat of the action that held Ingrid’s attention and fascination; more often than not, she found herself ignoring the way the stories ended.

(The stories never dwelled on the question of just how well those lady knights took to laying down their swords, trading their armor for heavy, restrictive gowns, and never setting foot on the battlefield again. The stories deemed the question unimportant, but it came to Ingrid at odd moments, unbidden, driving under her skin like a splinter coated in vitriol: it ached and festered and evaded all attempts to remove it like a shadow fleeing the sun.

The splinter whispered to her: will you be content to lay it all down, to put it all away, to dwell within walls and never feel the free air upon your face? Will you find contentment in being a man’s wife and bearing his children and never winning any accomplishments for your own name? Will you be content to spill your blood in the birthing bed, knowing that the risks you endure there will never be valued as highly as blood spilled on the battlefield? The risk you endure will ensure that the world will carry on into the next generation of knights, and it will be discounted and denigrated and derided. Men use the pain of women in childbirth as the butt of their jokes, and every pastime attributed to women is mocked and regarded as inherently lesser, of less worth.

You will live your life in the shadow of another, and every accomplishment you achieve will be tainted with derision. Can you be content with that?

Ingrid could not answer, for she had no answer to give. The phantom splinter festering under her skin had robbed her of a voice with which to answer these questions.)

Ingrid ignored the way the stories ended, but those endings were creeping up on her, nonetheless. She could not escape what was to become her life, before she could ever enjoy what had drawn her to those stories in the first place.

(Was it duty she longed for, or glory? And did it matter? There were plenty of young knights who longed for glory; Ingrid had listened to their longings for long enough to know how much young knights hungered for glory. Why should she not desire it as well?

But Ingrid thought of young knights dying in battle, and their parents receiving a shield and empty armor, and maybe bones if they were lucky, and she thought of her parents, with guilt squirming in her gut, and she… she really did not know.)

Ingrid was aware of what the marriage negotiations entailed. She and Glenn would wed once she had come of age, and Ingrid could not become a knight in that amount of time. She had never served as a squire, nor even as a page; her father would not permit it. And even if Ingrid was somehow to become a knight, she knew what would be expected of her once she was a wife. She knew what everyone would expect of her.

Except…

There was something that had been burning in her mind for a while, now. Burning in her mind, and her mouth, lashing at her tongue and beating against her teeth. Glenn was back. It was high time she asked.

-

“What?” Glenn asked, confused, and Ingrid could not restrain a sigh.

Oh, his frankness made her want to ring a hollow note on his skull at times, but he could be clueless, too, and that made her want to ring a hollow note on his _teeth_.

(Felix would never adopt this trait of his brother’s, and Ingrid could not count the reasons for her gratitude, not least that she knew that once she’d knocked his front teeth out, she’d regret having done it. That, and Felix _would_ find a way to pay her back. They always paid each other back.)

“I spoke clearly.” Ingrid crossed her arms about her chest, praying wordlessly that the gesture did not make her seem more of a child, for a child could be ignored and dismissed with startling ease. “Why are you helping me train?”

And still, Glenn cast his gaze about as if appealing to an invisible audience, as if Ingrid had spoken to him in the language they used down in Dagda, or what they used over in Almyra. As if what she asked was beyond his understanding. Oh, no, wifely submission was not going to come easily to Ingrid at _all_ if this was how their conversations went.

( _I’ve never seen my mother behave the way she expects me to behave._ )

“Glenn, would you please just tell me—“

“They’ve had you on swords since you were… five years old? You were five years old when you started training with swords, weren’t you?”

“Closer to six,” Ingrid corrected, narrowing her eyes at him uncertainly.

“Alright, six. And you started with lances a couple of years ago, didn’t you? When your father found out how much you love pegasi?”

Back when her father had still regarded this as an indulgence that it was no trouble to bestow on the child who might become his heir, or whom he might send off to be someone else’s bride, and never the inheritor of his house. (The ambiguity persisted, and was no less perturbing to Ingrid than it was to her oldest brother, Séverin. Whoever was getting the high seat when their father died, and whoever would have to stand in the shadow of it, it would have been easier to contend with if they knew who was occupying which spot.) Back before her father came to grips with the fact that this was not a whim she would outgrow, and regarded it instead with the unease of a man who could not decide whether it would be better to put a stop to it altogether.

(It would be better for Ingrid, to know whether he was going to rip the ground from under her feet. She’d like to know in advance also if she would continue to be allowed this ‘indulgence’ or if duty would demand of her that she sit by her mother’s knee and learn a lady’s crafts only, but her father would not tell her, and the longer he persisted in silence, the more she feared to ask.)

“Yes,” Ingrid said, in place of all that.

“So you were already being trained for years before I got involved. I already help Felix with his training, when I can; why _shouldn’t_ I help you?”

There was that cluelessness, again, and so despairingly genuine that Ingrid couldn’t even find it in herself to want to ring a hollow note on his teeth. But… She frowned deeply at him. There was something else behind it, and Ingrid felt her frustration dissipating in the face of troubled confusion. “I thought that once we were married—“

“Well, you thought wrong.” Glenn’s voice must have sounded harsh even to his own ears, for he sighed heavily and apologized, before going on, “Look. I know what you’ve been taught. I know what _I’ve_ been taught. But unless your father decides to make you his heir instead of Séverin, we are going to have to make our own way in the world.” He smiled ruefully. “The king’s knights don’t receive regular wages for their services; that would make us closer kin to sellswords than I care for. My father pays me a stipend—wouldn’t do for the royal court to see a son of House Fraldarius going around in shabby clothes or rusting armor—but most of my money comes from tournaments or what I’ve been able to take off of my enemies in battle. I’ll have to prove myself a lot more before I’ve even got a _chance_ of being awarded property of my own.” Another rueful laugh. “So my motives are not entirely altruistic, and I will not hold it against you if you try to thrash me during our next sparring session.”

“That depends on what you tell me next,” Ingrid told him, entirely too mildly.

(He’d not breathed a word of the dowry her father was paying, and for that, she was grateful enough that if a thrashing did enter into this, it wouldn’t be _that_ much of a thrashing.)

The laugh that greeted her this time was startled, and Glenn stared at her almost cagily. “You know, you look exactly like Lady Edith when you do that.”

“Well, she _is_ my mother.”

Glenn ran his hand through his hair, shoulders trembling with more suppressed laughter. They were out in one of the little courtyards in the Galatea’s castle, and the wind shivered overhead, a significantly more light-hearted echo of his laughter. “And now _I_ know the sort of looks I can expect when I do something stupid. No wonder your father’s got so much gray hair in his beard. The point is: it will be easier for us to make out way in the world if both of us are knights.” He eyed her closely. “You fight decently, and there _are_ ways to earn your spurs without having first been a squire. I can think of a few peers of mine you could trounce on the tourney field just as you are; believe me, you wouldn’t even break a sweat.

“And…” He paused, and smiled. It was a gentle smile, of the sort that Ingrid had not seen since she was small, and Felix would still tear towards him every time Glenn would appear in the doorway or over the crest of a hill. She’d… missed it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it, until now. “…I don’t think I look at marriage quite the way our parents do. We’re going to be partners, and I want to get a head start on that.” He clapped her shoulder. “So, we train.”

He left her alone after that, alone with the tumult of her disordered thoughts.

Ingrid would never fully sort those thoughts out, not under the soaring sky as clouds chased each other over the horizon far above her head, and not later when she was ensconced in the candlelit privacy of her bedchamber after dark.

It was just like him to say such things, with no thoughts towards the consequences—just last month, Lord Rodrigue had scolded Glenn after he’d made a remark that, as far as he was concerned, the only benefit a helmet provided was to make it easier to recover his head if something happened to remove it from his shoulders—but she…

Hmm. Ingrid smiled to herself as she closed her book, a thin, almost secretive smile, though there was no one who could have seen it to try to divine its meaning. It had rained recently, and the cobblestone path back inside was painted with smooth, glassy puddles. Peering down into one revealed the face of a young girl, a girl who might yet become a knight, and not yet grieve her parents, nor shame her house.

 _Partners_ …

Ingrid hadn’t ever really given much thought to what she wanted, in her husband. Her parents would find a husband for her; that was what they had always told her. They would find a husband for her, and she need not worry herself with what he would be like. He would want from her what all men wanted from their wives, and she need only be dutiful to please him, and be happy.

‘Partners’ was a surprise where she had expected none. It was a surprise, but she actually liked the sound of it.

-

(And bitter were the tears she would shed when the news came like a carrion-crow from the desolation of Duscur.

Young and reckless and desiring more and dead, dead, dead.)

-

Once upon a time, there was a lord’s daughter—a lady, we suppose. In a few years’ time, she would meet a princess in a tower, but not just yet. That event was so far off in the future that it had yet even to enter into her dreams. The future meeting was not a gleam in her eye.

Once upon a time, there was a young lady, a lord’s daughter, who longed to become a knight. But her family, though noble, was poor, and she was obliged to marry for the benefit of her house, for she carried within her blood the blessing of the Goddess, which her brothers lacked. She carried the blessing of the Goddess in her veins, and thus she was valuable to many men who could have provided a road to wealth for her noble house, for a Crest was a valuable addition to any bloodline, either noble, or aspiring to such.

The young lady was betrothed to a young knight, and she thought little of her potential worth to other men, because there was _this_ man and her future was to be lived together _with_ him and thus, why should she spare any concern for other men who might be pressing for her hand? Why should she dwell on these concerns? No one else was. She was to marry this young knight, and they were to be partners in all things, for young knights must make their way in the world, and both would need the other’s helping hand. The young lady thought she liked the sound of that. She had ever been poor, and a life of striving would not be so different from the life she already lived, except she would be able to _act_ to improve her own circumstances, instead of relying upon her parents. Such a life was something like the dreams she had cherished since she was old enough to know what dreams were.

But dreams were such fleeting things, and they could hold up under little pressure. The slightest breeze could fracture them; the faintest gust of wind could shatter them. And what broke her dreams to pieces had more power to it than a gust of wind; it broke her betrothed’s body along with it, pitiless and uncaring. (Such was the beast that was war.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who could not call herself a widow, for she had never been a wife. He was gone, you know, swallowed up in the fire that continued to burn out of control in the land that had claimed his life. He had died with his king, and the people of the land exacted vengeance with the blood of the kingslayers, effacing them from the earth to their parents and their parents’ parents, to their children and their children’s children. It would not recall the king from the shadowed lands of the dead. (Oh, what the Church said of the lands of the dead… They walked in starlight, it was said. But all the tales spoke of shadowed lands, tales so old that the Church was an infant toddling in their footsteps). The blood that was shed was shed as restitution, but it would not recall any of the knights who had followed their king into those shadowed lands, from which there was no return.

She could not call herself a widow, and thus her grieving was a thing of shadows, just as her betrothed was now a thing of shadows. There were many who grieved with her—brothers, friends, other kin and their friends—but she would wear no widow’s weeds, be allowed no formal mourning period as would have been afforded to her had she actually been wedded to he who had vanished into blood and smoke and shadow. She was not allowed the finality of a widow’s mourning.

She could not call herself a widow, and thus, she had none of a widow’s rights. No dowry, no settlements, and her family had not grown any richer since her betrothed had died. The lord who was her father no longer had a husband for his daughter. He must needs look elsewhere.

(The first time her parents introduced her to a new man after Glenn died, Ingrid did not refuse to meet him.

She dearly wished to. Glenn had been to her life as the roots were to the tree, as the stones were to the walls they made up. With him gone, she felt as though vital parts of herself were missing, and what was left was fit to fly apart at the seam with the slightest tug. _Felix had told her of the state of his armor. She had insisted. She wished she hadn’t._ She did not wish to replace him so quickly. Better the emptiness than a competitor who could never be more than a pale shadow of what he had been.

But duty, while never a balm to grief, was something that she could use as a bolster to her weak legs, something she could use to prop up her weak heart, and duty would be as a mask to the emptiness yawning from the parts of her that were missing.

He was not a bad man, this first man she was introduced to after Glenn died. Even in the depths of her grief, Ingrid could grant that. But he was not Glenn, and after a while, the dowry negotiations fell through, and Ingrid saw him no more.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who, for the good of her family, must marry a wealthy man, and soon. Her age constrained her from marrying straight away, but long engagements were not unheard of among her people, and a long engagement would at least give her prospective husband time to see in her all that was worthy of being his wife. _You would do any man under this sun proud_ , her father would say, as her mother brushed out her hair and a maid selected one of the gowns that had been made for her (The young lady could hardly fail to notice that her family’s portions at supper had grown smaller and smaller, of late). She would do any man proud, but not for herself.

(“And she does bear the Crest of Daphnel? That is not in question?”

A lady should not eavesdrop like a naughty servant poring over the keyhole while their betters discussed matters far above their heads. Those words, once spoken by her mother, rang in Ingrid’s mind as the words drifted to her ears, but still, she dove behind the nearest tapestry, pulled her knees up to her chest in the alcove, and listened. This was not above her head. This _was_ her head.

As Ingrid tried her best to breathe as lightly and shallowly as she may, her father replied to the man, “Indeed. You know what tests the priests perform; those tests do not lie. I had four separate officials examine her blood when she was in her infancy, and further evidence has since surfaced in weapons training: my daughter _does_ bear the Crest of Daphnel.”

There was nothing in the question, nor in its response, that could have inspired shock. Ingrid was neither blind, nor deaf, nor kept in ignorance by her parents. She knew what was her value, in the eyes of those who sought her hand. She was not a child, to expect someone completely disinterested in that one, glaring aspect. That was a thing for tales, and she was not the equal of those ladies found in tales; it was not for her.

“And is she capable of bearing children?” Ingrid was unfamiliar with this man, had yet to be formally introduced to him, but suspicion was a tone that sang the same notes in every voice, likely in every language, and Ingrid recognized it at once. It left a bitter taste on her tongue. “I would hate to think of the long years of marriage ahead of us, empty of the sound of laughter or pattering feet.”

This, too, came as no shock. No shock. No shock.

“I have no evidence to suggest otherwise.” They were drawing close to the tapestry, now, and Ingrid could barely breathe, for fear that it would be loud enough for them to hear. The musty odor of the back of the tapestry filled her nostrils, making her head spin. “She is yet a maiden—and I should _hope_ you would not challenge that assertion,” her father added more sharply. “But she has been examined by physicians and healers alike, and there is nothing to suggest that she would not be capable of bearing children, once the time came. If you wish to know more, it would be better to ask my lady wife. This is her province, not mine.”

“I will not challenge you, Lord Galatea. You will no doubt forgive me for my reservations; the size of the dowry you offer for your daughter’s hand has raised concerns among my own people.”

“Understandable.” Ingrid had expected to hear anger in her father’s voice. Instead, it seemed anger could not be stoked to life, and the cold coals of exhaustion must needs put forth in its place. Ingrid found his exhaustion less comforting than his anger would have been. “But on my honor, I assure you that she is all that I have told you.”

They quit the room, leaving Ingrid alone, crouched in her dark alcove behind one of the many musty, threadbare tapestries that adorned the walls of this hall. Her hands were fisted in the wool of her trousers. She did not realize until she felt the edges of her fingernails biting into the hard flesh of her thighs.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who wished to be a knight. She was indulged in this desire by her parents, for the land was harsh, and having lost its king, full of newfound dangers that could easily befall a young lady, wed or unwed. But while her parents regarded it as a whim to be indulged, they knew and she knew that there was another path for her, another path that she _must_ walk if the family’s fortunes were ever to rise again. Once upon a time, there was a young lady who was learning how uneasy the path was to tread when it was being pulled constantly between all that she desired, and all that duty had made her for.

(When Ingrid took up her lance to train, she felt a sickly weight settle in the pit of her stomach. She had never felt such before, not even after Glenn had died, not even when she was actually ill when she was trying to train. But there had been occasions, many occasions, when she had felt worse when she was trying to train, so Ingrid pressed through it as she went through her forms, teeth gritted against the burning, prickling twisting that clutched her gut in its unyielding claws. She had trained through worse. She would train through worse.

But though she had trained through worse, and would likely do so again in the future, her mind kept returning to it, attempting to unravel it and read the letters stamped on its threads, to know better what it was that troubled her this day.

Ingrid snorted. Ignorance didn’t suit her, she thought. It never had before, and it certainly didn’t now.

Another suitor left the castle yesterday, without any hope of further contact, let alone a marriage contract. Her father had muttered something about the man trying to gouge him over the dowry, but when Ingrid had met him, she’d just emerged from the training grounds, without even the chance to bathe the sweat away from her body, and she’d seen the look in his eyes, plain as day. He’d not even tried to hide it, for all that you would _think_ that his purpose here would have put him in mind of making himself more agreeable to her.

It wasn’t the first time a man had looked at her like that. It likely wouldn’t be the last time a man looked at her like that. Ingrid would have thought that, by now, she’d have had enough experience of it that she could just let it roll over her like water over a river bank. You would really think that, wouldn’t you? And yet, she thought of his obvious distaste, thought of her father’s dismay when he left without having signed his name to any papers, and the weight in her stomach grew heavier still.

 _Did Cassandra have to contend with anything like this?_ she wondered almost wildly, before remembering that Cassandra was gone into the mists and that House Charon had never been in as dire straits as House Galatea—and that several of Count Charon’s children bore their ancestral Crest, anyways. No, Cassandra had likely never contended with anything like this, and even if she had, she was no longer here for Ingrid to seek her counsel. Such thoughts were fruitless.

This was not fruitless, was it?

The land had grown perilous since the king was slain. Bandits and raiders took the absence of a strong ruler as free license to pillage all up and down the spine of the Oghma Mountains. Even noblewomen who were expected never to take to the battlefield must needs take up arms, for even the smaller castles along the border were being targeted, and at least one family had been carried off, and neither seen nor heard from again. Ingrid knew that, and she knew with cold certainty that it was the rationale her parents told themselves, when it came down to whether or not they should bar this altogether.

The land was dangerous, and all must needs defend themselves, if they wished to remain to shape what would come after. So Ingrid trained, and wondered what become of her the first time she had occasion to cross blades outside of the training grounds, if she would acquit herself well enough to come home, or if she would become just one more of the many who never came home, who marched off into shadow, out of the reach of mortal man.

And she wondered what would become of her family, if she could not be pleasing enough to make a man stay, if she could not be enough of a lady to appeal to her suitors, if she could not be a woman who would appeal to a man in search of a wife.

Would it have been better to have never taken up a sword or a lance? Would it have been better to apply herself solely to the lessons her mother sought to teach, however little she might love them? Would it have been better if she had never desired to be a knight, if she had never so much as laid eyes on one of the chivalric cycles? Would she now be betrothed to someone whose connections could lift House Galatea out of the deep gorge that was their poverty if she had applied herself to becoming a proper lady?

 _I would not be myself_. No, she would not be herself: she would be more akin to a doll that allowed itself to be dressed up by anyone who walked in through the door, regardless of who they were. And perhaps that would have left her family in better straits than what they currently inhabited, but she…

_I want to be able to recognize what I see in the mirror._

She wanted her family to be well, too.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady from a family that was noble, but poor. She had once been betrothed to a young knight, but he was gone, now, and it was hardly as though his death had brought wealth to her family. He was gone, and now they must find another man for her. Such was easier said, than done.

(Ingrid remembered when her father shifted from offering a dowry to potential suitors to demanding a bride price from them, instead. Vividly did she recall it, for she had been present at that stage of the negotiations— _you are old enough, now, for this_ —and the moment had been a jarring one. Jarring and, once she overcame the initial shock, one that saw her fighting not to flush with shame.

She knew they were poor. Her father had recently put restrictions on the number of candles she and her brothers could use per month, and their dining table was even more lightly laden than usual.

_Her portions were not shrinking at the rate of her brothers’, and Mother had scolded her when she caught Ingrid sneaking some food to little Henrik’s plate. What had she said? Oh, yes, “Your health will suffer if you do not eat as you ought, Ingrid,” as if Henrik, ten years Ingrid’s junior, would not feel the effects of malnourishment all the more sharply for it._

Ingrid knew her house was a poor one, and that they were not getting any richer. Their lands were neither fertile as the lands of those nobles fortunate enough to reside in the Tailtean Plains or the surrounding regions, nor as rich in what could be mined from the mountains as what could be found further north, southwest, and southeast. If they wished for House Galatea’s fortunes to rise, they would have to look to another source of income—or they would have to welcome a fresh influx of money, and fast, and even investment would require that, so.

But this was not how it was done in the noble houses of the Kingdom, was it? No, noble fathers offered dowries for their daughter, either a sum of cash or an annuity. Noble fathers did not demand that suitors for their daughter’s hands _pay_ them for the privilege. They were supposed to be able to provide for their daughters, instead of demanding compensation for their loss. The common folk did that, but at least in their case, it made _sense_ ; they were losing a laborer as much as they were losing a daughter. This…

She knew how it must shame her father, for even if they did not say it outright, this shift spoke all too clearly to the position they were in. All would know it now, without her father having to breathe a word of it in plain language.

It shamed him, and it made her feel… strange. There was shame; of course, there was shame. But there was something else to it that grated against her skin, made her feel more than ever like a doll that all others wished to fashion after their own desires. Made her feel like less of a person.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady whose family were desperate to find her a husband.

(Ingrid couldn’t remember just when her suitors started becoming… older. Glenn had been but four years her senior; such was scarcely strange among the nobility, even considered optimal. And at first, the men her parents invited around were his age, or perhaps a year or two older. But as time wore on, they were getting older, and older, and Ingrid never noticed, until she was introduced to one of them, and when she looked between him and her father, she realized he had more gray hair in his beard than her father did.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady whose wishes for herself bore little resemblance to her parents’ wishes for her.

(She tried, she kept trying to think of a way to become a knight that would not bring dishonor upon her, a path that she could tread that would not shame her parents or plunge them deeper into poverty. What had Glenn said, about how difficult it could be for a young knight to make their way in the world? There must be a path that led to what she so dearly desired, that would not yet taint her with dishonor or bring harm to her family, but if such a path existed, she had yet to find it.)

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who felt a little like a doll, though all thoughts of such were shunned by a troubled mind.

Once upon a time, there was a young lady.

(She was dutiful. She would do her duty. She would give her parents no cause to grieve, or be shamed. What her parents wanted for her was what she ought to want. But one small, treacherous part of her mind kept wishing for a life she might want. Or, if it was to be a life of marriage and childbirth, for the sort of man she might want. That small, treacherous part of her mind asked: but what _do_ you want?)

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

Once upon a

Once upon

Once


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : societal misogyny, reference to dead children]

Ingrid _had_ asked her father where he had procured the money to send her to the Officers Academy. She was neither ignorant, nor heedless; she knew that the entrance fee to send a student to the Officers Academy was _substantial_ , and that it was a sum of money that her house would have struggled to raise even during a year of exceptionally rich harvests, which the past year had _not_ been. But when she asked her father, he told her not to worry over it, and when she subsequently went to her mother, it seemed that her father had gone ahead to warn Lady Edith that their child might come calling, and Mother pinned her with a long stare and told her, again, not to worry herself over it. This was an opportunity that she would do well not to squander, Mother admonished. Spending the school year worrying about money would certainly count as squandering the opportunity.

Ingrid was uncertain as to whether she even had it in herself to stop worrying about it, but coming here in the first place was more than she had ever dreamed of, so she would try.

Though rare indeed was it for a student at the Officers Academy to spend more than one year in its tutelage, the year students would spend learning from the professors of the Academy and the Knights of Seiros were considered to be as good as the several years in training a squire traditionally spent before becoming a knight. The Knights of Seiros and the professors of the Officers Academy were the cream of the crop; only the best of the best could serve the Church from its high seat in Garreg Mach. If Ingrid’s health held through the year (she had little reason to believe that it wouldn’t) and there wasn’t too much in the way of trouble (that, she was a little more apprehensive about), she’d reap a rich harvest from attending classes here.

Ingrid had been here but a few days, and already, she was optimistic about the prospective course of the year. The grounds of Garreg Mach were remarkably lush and green, even compared with the relatively verdant countryside surrounding the monastery in the remote heights of the Oghma Mountains. These were not the heathery moors and sparse pine barrens of the Galatea territory, nor the sulfurous wasteland that infected the earth for miles out around the borders of Ailell. No, this was like a garden gone to seed, like the sparing stories Ingrid had heard of the remarkably fertile lands of Brigid and Dagda. (If nothing else, perhaps she could prevail upon someone to tell her what farming techniques were used to yield such a bounty from the typically unyielding earth of the mountains.)

She had exchanged letters with a distant cousin who had attended the Officers Academy some years back to try to get a sense of what the curriculum was like, and Ingrid was prepared for the next year to be one of rigorous training and study, and to come back home much more knowledgeable in both academics and combat than she had left it. (Ingrid wondered briefly how the recommended training regimens would compare to the one she employed at home, and wondered why she hadn’t thought to include that question in her letters to her cousin. Oh, well: she’d find out, soon enough.)

Felix and Sylvain had both managed to pass the entrance exams to enter the Academy—with Felix, that wasn’t much of a shock, though given the way Sylvain had been behaving these past few years, Ingrid was amazed Sylvain had managed to apply himself for long enough to study properly for the exams. (There had been trouble in Gautier territory, much of it centering on Miklan. Perhaps the Margrave had wanted Sylvain away from home for a while while that was being sorted out. That wouldn’t surprise Ingrid, not at all. Given that his freedom to bed every girl he took the slightest fancy to would be curtailed while he was here, if only because students weren’t allowed to leave the monastery grounds without permission, Ingrid was somewhat skeptical that Sylvain was here because he wanted to avail himself of the knowledge that could be gained here.) A full year in their close company, interacting with them every day… Ingrid had never spent such a long period of time around either of them; the closest was a six-month sojourn with Felix and his father a couple of years back during an especially harsh winter, when the roads were impassable and the forests bristling with the arrow-quivers of bandits. That would be interesting.

Dimitri was here, as well, and the only thing about _that_ that surprised Ingrid was that he hadn’t been sent here sooner. Ingrid hadn’t actually seen Dimitri in a couple of years; his uncle wouldn’t let him go any further from Fhirdiad than the few miles of countryside outside the city gates, and without a queen at court, there was little use for women in the royal court, even as guests. Maybe this would be a chance to reconnect. At the very least, Ingrid had the feeling they’d be spending a lot of time together trying to curtail some of Sylvain’s more inappropriate behaviors.

(One did hope that Ingrid wouldn’t have to take _too_ much time away from her studies to keep Sylvain from trying to ruin the lives of hapless girls.)

Ingrid expected to derive much benefit from her year at Garreg Mach, and hoped to derive even more, but there was a shadow hanging over her that made her wonder if it would be as beneficial as she hoped.

_“There will be many eligible young men at the Officers Academy, from further afield than we have previously looked. I know that you will make yourself agreeable to them, and that they will be agreeable to you.”_

Hmm, she would try. Ingrid wondered often, nowadays, if there was anything in her at all that could be agreeable to men in search of a wife, or if to become some such person, she would have to carve out all the vital parts of herself, and graft falsehoods in their place.

(There had been a moment when she thought, really thought, that perhaps her father had sent her here for another reason. But that had been a fantasy not fit even for a minstrel’s songs, let alone serious consideration within her own mind. There was no room for it in the waking world. What he wanted was what was good for her. What he wanted was good. What he wanted…)

…She would try.

-

One week later, trying to do as her father had asked was not… Well, it just was not working out the way her father would have liked.

There were the boys Ingrid already knew, who would not work out as a husband for various reasons. Felix and Sylvain were noble enough, for certain, and their houses wealthy and prestigious enough that an affinal connection to them would have been an incredible stroke of good fortune for House Galatea. But Ingrid regarded them more like brothers than anything else, and it did not take a soothsayer to tell how that would well that would bode when marriage entered into the equation. On top of that, neither Felix nor Sylvain’s fathers really considered her a particularly good match for their heirs, and Ingrid’s father didn’t consider Sylvain a particularly good match, _period_.

And it went without saying that Ingrid wasn’t considered a good match for the future king of Faerghus, and even if she was, Dimitri was, well, not quite to her what Felix and Sylvain were to her, but still not someone she ever particularly wanted to think of in _those_ terms. And Dimitri had grown… It was something that Ingrid couldn’t quite call ‘brittle,’ but certainly couldn’t call _durable_ , either. Ingrid could see only the edges of it, and frankly thought Felix was blowing things out of proportion with his complaints, but he wasn’t the same person he had once been. Small wonder.

Mayhap she could grow closer to the person Dimitri had become, since last they saw each other. Mayhap, mayhap. Ingrid wondered, though, if they would ever be as close as the people they had been before a river of blood had sprung up between them. Blood had a way of subtly poisoning aught it touched.

Beyond them, the other boys at the Academy were either too poor for her father’s taste, too low-born for her father’s taste, or they would have been _exactly_ to her father’s taste, but they very much were _not_ to hers. She could only be grateful that Lorenz had apparently decided within five minutes of meeting her that she was too poor and too unladylike for his tastes—though those five minutes had been five minutes too many, if Ingrid was being _very_ honest.

At least the classes were all that she’d hoped they be, and more. The Blue Lions were led by a Crest Scholar originally from the Empire, a man who by his own admission had never picked up a lance in his life, and had only ever participated in riding and archery for sport, so Ingrid’s combat training was almost entirely in the hands of the knights and the specially appointed instructors, but there were certain advantages to having a trained researcher as a professor, and that, Ingrid thought, was coming out in the sheer rigor of the lectures. Her own tutors at home had tried their best, certainly, but her father couldn’t afford to hire the best of the best, and even the best of the best would have been working with the limited materials the Galateas had at hand. Here, there were no such restrictions, and the difference had been immediately noticeable.

Combat instruction had been… interesting. The sword instructor, Jeritza, was a man who could most charitably be called “odd,” though Ingrid had met odder, in her time. The new professor, Melusine, had taken on a role in combat instruction as well, since that was where the vast majority of her experience lied, and if Ingrid was being frank, she was a rather odd person as well.

(She was not Jeritza’s equal for being aggressively off-putting, if only because Ingrid did not think she was _trying_ to be off-putting. Her awkwardness could be rooted in many things, and of all the things Ingrid would expect from a mercenary, she _would_ expect them to be watchful, so that Professor Melusine was watchful didn’t come as any shock.

Professor Melusine’s sheer _quiet_ was unsettling—Ingrid hadn’t heard her speak more than about ten words before the first time she was in the training grounds at the same time that Professor Melusine was holding a training session with another group. But it felt like something natural, and not like she was holding in words that would otherwise have been said, for whatever reason. And after a while, Ingrid found that being around her was oddly calming, though Ingrid did not know why.)

Though the instructors might not have been quite what Ingrid was expecting, the quality of their instruction was undeniable. The lance instructor, a knight named Gilbert, was currently away from the monastery, but the Archbishop’s aide, Seteth, was filling in for him until he returned, so it wasn’t as if Ingrid’s training was lagging there, either. Ingrid was learning much of battle, though she was not sure when it would be that she first wet her blade with blood.

She hoped that, when that day came, she could acquit herself with honor. Glenn and Séverin had both told her so many stories about watching green, unblooded knights dirty their boots with bile after their first kill. If she could just get through it without doing that, she’d consider it a success. (Felix had told her other stories. She’d not paid much mind to those.)

But there were certain things that she must do by herself, in the interest of keeping up her skill. Ingrid had never trained or run through her forms in large groups before, and thus far, she’d found the presence of her classmates just a _bit_ distracting. It would go away, in time. (She hoped.) For now, Ingrid found herself seeking the training grounds at odd hours when no one else was likely to be by, when she could concentrate properly.

(She had longed for something like this for so long. Ingrid had _no_ desire to be washed out because the instructors, let alone the _Archbishop_ , thought her ill-suited to the rigor of her coursework and training. If the Officers Academy deemed her unfit to become a warrior, well… Well. Ingrid could think of a few people who would make quite a lot of that. She’d rather not give them that sort of traction.)

Just after supper (and the generous portions they were allowed in the dining hall were enough all by themselves to make Ingrid seriously wonder just likely it was that she’d be allowed to join the Knights of Seiros as a trainee following graduation), Ingrid had found that the training grounds were either sparsely inhabited, or completely deserted. At least if she made a few pratfalls while she was going through forms with a sword or a lance, there wouldn’t be an overabundance of witnesses to it.

This far south, the air was warm just after the start of the year, and the evening air was filled with the chirping of crickets and the low, moaning song of the wind coming up from the sunny south. As Ingrid made her way from the dining hall to the training grounds, her nose was filled with the smell of green—of plant life, richer and more abundant than she had ever known it in Galatea territory. She thought of home, of moors and pine barrens and sulfurous wasteland, the horizon pierced by the broken, jagged teeth of the Oghma Mountains. Home was still well-loved; if ever Ingrid was to fall out of love with home, it would take longer than this, by far. But this was certainly nice, as a change of pace.

The breeze that had followed after her was extinguished with the closing of the training ground doors like a candle being snuffed out. Sure enough, the training grounds were as deserted as Ingrid had hoped to find them, without even a pair of knights trying to get in some time for sparring.

_Sword or lance?_

In place of the sweet, green breeze that had been her company outside, in here, Ingrid was met with the commingled odor of earth and sweat, with a copper tang barely visible beneath it. (She had been assured that serious injuries were rarely seen in the training grounds. Assured by someone who seemed to be trying to convince themselves of it as much as her.) It was lacking the scent of leather, but overall, not unpleasant, not to someone with her experiences. The ceiling was pocked with glass skylights, the only example Ingrid had seen of windows with plain, uncolored glass in all the monastery, banishing shadows from the ground where the torches mounted to the walls could not.

_Sword or lance, sword or lance…_

Lance. She had one dedicated instructor for swords, and currently, only a substitute for lances.

The training lances in the monastery were made of a different kind of wood than the ones at home, paler in color, akin to honey in hue, and they still felt strange in Ingrid’s hands. Familiar scratches and nocks she kept expecting to feel under her fingers were instead absent, and the sheer smoothness of the wood was jarring to her. She’d grow accustomed to it. She had a year to grow accustomed to it.

Sure enough, without a crowd of other students in there with her, Ingrid soon settled into a comfortable routine, her mind sinking down into the lull of deep concentration. The forms she was being taught weren't so different than what she had learned at home, but there were some differences. Welcome was the opportunity to have more moves to fall back on when battle became a normal part of her life.

As she had finally found the level of concentration here that she had enjoyed at home, Ingrid experienced something, though she did not realize it at first, that she had often experienced at home: concentration so intense that she did not realize at first when someone else had come into the training grounds with her. No, Ingrid was finally getting some quality training in; the chances of her actually noticing she was no longer alone were close to nil. She wasn’t Felix, who was so over-aware of his surroundings at all times that he could hear a pin drop on the other side of the room even when he was deep in his sword forms (It made sneaking up on him a fool’s errand).

But eventually, Ingrid had to take a break, if only because her hands had gotten so sweaty that they kept slipping up and down the lance, and she realized for the first time that she was no longer alone.

What she caught sight of first was a head of long, white hair, and Ingrid’s first thought was: Lysithea.

But that made little sense. Ingrid barely knew Lysithea, but Annette and Mercedes had both mentioned that Lysithea was studying solely magic, with no element of physical weaponry entering into her training; she was very frail, Annette had said, too frail for more physically strenuous training. And Lysithea’s hair was as white as bleached bone, and very frizzy and brittle. The head of hair she had spied was more silvery than bone, and sleeker and healthier-looking, though still oddly translucent to the eye.

Also, Lysithea didn’t wear ribbons in her hair. Ingrid had noticed that much.

Ingrid looked past the hair, and saw an axe held firmly in gloved hands. That much confirmed what she had expected: Edelgard.

Ingrid had never seen Edelgard in training; that they were in different classes meant that they, for the most part, went to the combat instructors at different times, and even when they had been out in the woods on that training exercise at the very start, they had been in separate groups, and never trained in proximity to one another.

The Adrestian Empire was a different beast from the Kingdom, a beast Ingrid had little familiarity with. What she did know was that Edelgard was the only child and heir of Emperor Ionius. There was some talk, confused and inconsistent, the Adrestian emperor having once had other children. People did not particularly seem to want to talk about them, and Ingrid had never been in a position to know very much about it; Ingrid had discerned little from the whispers that she could really call reliable. It would seem those other children had died, though no one quite seemed able to say _how_ they had died. The result of it, though, was that Edelgard was her father’s sole heir, the weight of the Empire resting squarely on her shoulders.

(The question of what had become of those brothers and sisters would return later to drive hooks into Ingrid’s mind. What she would never understand was how _anyone_ who knew that Edelgard had not always been the emperor’s only child could go about their lives without the question of what had become of them burning a hole in their mind. How could everyone just treat this as some sort of triviality?)

The Adrestian Empire was a different beast from the Kingdom, a beast unfamiliar to Ingrid’s eyes, but she knew that the Empire weathered incursions from foreign raiders, and it seemed very much to Ingrid as if the Imperial princess, future Emperor, would be expected to be a formidable presence on the battlefield.

Well, Ingrid had no idea how Edelgard performed on the battlefield. (She knew what had happened with the house leaders and the bandits. It should not have been, she should have been there, she—) Just judging by the force of her swings, the power clearly barely restrained, the hard, focused gleam in her eyes, Ingrid thought she would have been a force to be reckoned with.

At last, Edelgard noticed her staring, and halted her progress, letting her axe arm hang not-quite-loose at her side and raising one pale, immaculate eyebrow. “Yes?”

The tone of her voice was not quite what Ingrid would have called unfriendly (and speaking as another girl with a deep voice, her normal, neutral tones had been taken for unfriendly more often than she cared to remember, so she wasn’t going to immediately assume it of Edelgard, either), but it was certainly _not_ something that could just be brushed off. Ingrid felt her face grow hot—how long _had_ she been staring?—as she rooted around in her mind for something to say that wouldn’t have been even more off-putting than her staring.

“My apologies, Princess,” she settled on at last, and her voice was so stiff that even to her own ears, it sounded depressingly hollow. “I didn’t mean—“

“Edelgard.”

“I—what?” At least the confusion in Ingrid’s voice did not now sound so hollow.

Edelgard’s expression was not scolding or reprimanding. Edelgard’s expression was entirely too even to attribute such to it—there was a moment when Edelgard’s face had more relationship with alabaster than with flesh. A statue could not scold, let alone reprimand. “I don’t think it’s constructive for us to stand on rank and title here. It would only serve as a distraction from our education. So, ‘Edelgard.’”

Dimitri had expressed much the same sentiment on their first day of class. For whatever reason, perhaps because once Edelgard ascended her throne, she would not be _Ingrid’s_ emperor, Ingrid found she had an easier time acceding to Edelgard in this, than she did with Dimitri. “Edelgard.” It still felt ponderous as a cold coal on her tongue, though. “Again, my apologies. I’ve…” Oh, this was weak, but it was what she could think to say. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone train with an axe before.”

At least that much was truly spoken. Their class was divided into groups by weapon when they met with the combat instructors, and Ingrid had had to devote too much time to her own training to look to what anyone else was doing, on the occasions that the Black Eagles had been in the training grounds at the same time.

Edelgard pressed her lips tightly together. “Yes, I understand that the axe is often associated with bandits in Faerghus.” She eyed Ingrid more closely. “Do _you_ have troubles with bandits in your home territory?”

Did they have so much trouble with bandits in or around Enbarr that _that_ would be where Edelgard’s mind went at the first? (Ingrid’s mind immediately went to princesses in carriages, traveling across remote and perilous roads, and the knights who escorted them safely to the distant lands that were their destination. It sat in her brain like ivy wrapping around the trunk of a tree—not unnatural, and yet not entirely natural, either, a shroud over something as yet concealed.) She nodded. “The border territories have always had trouble with bandits to one degree or another. Their camps are high up in the mountains, where the only people who could reach the encampments before they could flee are more likely to be shot down by arrows than rout the bandits.” Ingrid stared down at the honey-hued shaft of her lance, imagined she was holding a battle-ready lance instead and wielding it in defense of her home, or her liege lord, or her king. _Not for you, not for you_. “It’s gotten worse since King Lambert died.”

What would that mean to the future ruler of the Adrestian Empire? Would they receive aid, in the form of soldiers or supplies? Would the new emperor look on at Faerghus’s woes with gray indifference? Would she seek to turn the trials of another kingdom to her own advantage? Ingrid had never thought of it in such terms, before, but then, she had never left Faerghus before. She had never really engaged with the idea of the world as political stage, before. (What would the play be about? Something bloody, no doubt.)

Edelgard’s jaw worked, taut and accompanied by the sound of grinding teeth. “Yes,” she said lowly. “I can imagine.”

Odd reaction, and perhaps that was catching, because for all that Ingrid knew that there would have been greater wisdom found in keeping her peace, she said firmly, “Until you’ve lived through it—“ there had only been one incident when the town girding the Galatea castle had been attacked. It had been enough. “—I don’t think you can.”

“You and I have different views, then,” Edelgard replied, nodding briefly. She walked over to the rack where the training axes were kept, betraying not so much as a sliver of the tiredness she might have felt after a long day. She set the axe back down in its slot, slowly, taking care not to jostle the rest of the rack. “For there are a thousand different kinds of trouble, and I don’t think you have to experience the same sort of trouble to understand another kind.”

Brisk, crisp, and clear, and without the faintest trace of reprimand. That was what struck Ingrid about Edelgard’s tone, more than anything else. A cooler, sharper variant of the amiable politeness Dimitri effected, the mask a little stonier, a little less inviting, but Ingrid recognized it almost immediately. Was this what princes and princesses the world over made of themselves?

(What was she like, beneath it? Was she like what the tales said of princesses—pure-hearted, virtuous maidens, hearts moved over towards kindness? Or was she something Ingrid wouldn’t have recognized, the shadow that gathered at the page margins, the whisper that promised something other than the words that were written? Edelgard was inclined towards sternness, certainly—Ingrid had only watched Edelgard interact with her classmates in the dining hall, but watching her interactions with the likes of Ferdinand, Caspar, and Linhardt certainly confirmed that touch of sternness Ingrid saw in her-but in every other area of her deportment, she was everything Ingrid had imagined a princess would be. The only true departure was the axe, the sword, but unlike princesses in the tales Ingrid had read, Edelgard was a princess who would become an emperor. An emperor must needs take up arms.

And if she wasn’t like what the tales said of princesses, well, Ingrid was having some issues with that area, as well. Any chances of her being a lady from a song were a wash; no one would have mistaken her for that, excepting the possibility that they were blind, deaf, and dumb. And as for being a knight from a tale, well, it was hard to be a knight from a tale when you were not a knight, and unlikely ever to become one.)

“As you say,” Ingrid murmured.

“Hmm. Good night, Ingrid.”

Ingrid blinked, startled, as Edelgard made her way to the doors, more swiftly than she would have thought. “Ahh… You’re leaving already?”

Another brisk nod. “I was here for an hour, Ingrid. I have work to do, before the night is spent.”

Ingrid looked to the doors, noticed for the first time the fingers of night creeping in from under the gap between the foot of the doors and the ground. Huh, it looked like her concentration had indeed served her well, for her not to notice the time, as well as someone coming into the room and training alongside her.

With a sigh and a nod, Ingrid muttered, “It is getting late.” And her with an assignment to get through by Friday. “Good night, Pr—“

Edelgard frowned lightly.

Ingrid felt her face grow warm again. “Good night, Edelgard.”

With that, Edelgard quit the training ground, and Ingrid was left alone, gripping a training lance in her hands and staring at the space that Edelgard had once inhabited.

She would have liked to spar with her. That was the thought that surfaced in Ingrid’s mind at the first, above all others. Ingrid had never sparred against someone wielding an axe before, neither with lance nor with sword. It would be good experience.

It would have been good experience, but that was not what had floated up to the forefront of Ingrid’s mind. She remembered the power she had seen in Edelgard’s arms as she struck out with her axe, seen the gleam in her pale eyes that Ingrid could not quite call ‘fiery,’ but had been more dynamic by far than the alabaster mask of her face. Remembered the way the light had hit Edelgard’s silvery, almost translucent hair, remembered the measured confidence in each movement she made.

Ingrid had never seen Edelgard in battle, but just what she’d seen here had been impressive. Not often did she see someone acquit themselves so in the training grounds. Ingrid thought she would have liked to try her hand against someone so skilled. (This thought, too, sat like ivy creeping over her brain—it could have sprung up naturally, but it felt like a shroud for something else Ingrid did not care to scrutinize.)

-

It must have been the coincidence of the millennium that the heirs to Fódlan’s three territories were all attending the Officers Academy at the same time. That Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude were all born in the same year facilitated the coincidence to some degree (Though not as much as you’d think, once you took Edelgard’s mysteriously dead siblings into account). Still, it was certainly a coincidence, and Ingrid was far from the only one who’d noticed.

It had caused a bit of a stir when it was first realized, and a couple of weeks into the school year, the stir had yet to dissipate. You didn’t have to go far to find someone gossiping about it, be they students (Mercedes, Hilda, Dorothea, and Lorenz all liked to comment on it) or the permanent residents of the monastery (There were two priests in particular who liked to stand in a corner of the entrance hall where they somehow thought no one else would be able to hear them). The way people talked about it, Ingrid would really have thought nothing more interesting had ever gone on in their lives.

Herself, Ingrid would have to confess to having given the matter some thought—it would have been impossible not to, considering how many people around her had decided to latch onto it as a hot topic of gossip. The three heirs to the three territories of Fódlan were all attending the Officers Academy this year, and on top of that, one of the Black Eagles was the heir to the throne of Brigid. If friendship could grow between them, what might that mean for Fódlan, once they took on the responsibilities that were to be theirs? What might these three rulers be able to accomplish, acting in concert?

It was a nice thought, but something that would have no place in reality for the next several years, at least. Ingrid didn’t think it constructive to spend too much time pondering it.

She would have thought that _Felix_ wouldn’t have thought it constructive, either, but this morning in the dining hall was the third time she had caught him staring intently at Edelgard, as if trying to pull apart her skin with just his eyes, so maybe not.

Well, the appropriate thing to do was _ask_ after it, was it not?

“So…” She did wait until their voices could be easily lost to the din of conversation rattling around the dining hall’s high ceiling; Ingrid wasn’t a complete novice, after all. “Is there a reason you’re staring at Edelgard like that?”

In response, Felix just eyed her cagily, which, if Ingrid was being honest, did not exactly fill her with reassurance.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to challenge her to a duel.” The words should have been spoken in scolding, but Felix’s wordless response to her last question had put a spike of worry in her gut, and sternness wasn’t coming as readily as it ought. “You can’t just challenge a princess to a duel, Felix. I think Hubert might actually try to kill you while you slept, if you did.”

At last, Felix spoke, but it was not the sharp-tongued retort that Ingrid had expected. Instead, he nodded shortly in Edelgard’s direction, before muttering, “We’ve met before.”

Now, that _really_ wasn’t what Ingrid had expected Felix to say—she didn’t think it was even in the same kingdom as what she’d expected him to say. She blinked a few times, processing the words, before a frown unfurled over her lips. She took a bite of breakfast (some sort of baked fruit dish commonly served in the southwest of the Empire; it was more liberally spiced with cinnamon than was really to her liking, but food was food, and Ingrid wasn’t going to turn her nose up at it), and after confirming that the food on her plate was real and that that must mean that she was awake, she hazarded to ask, “What are you talking about? You’ve never been to Enbarr, have you?”

She already knew the answer to that question: no. And there was no reason why Edelgard would have left the Empire while still in childhood, especially not after she became the emperor’s sole heir; the risk to her person would no doubt have been deemed too great. So why…

Felix scanned the room with the focused gaze of a man trying to pick out spies or tale-tellers hiding under the dining tables, before telling her, in just as low a mutter as before, “It was in Fhirdiad, several years ago.”

“ _What_? Why was Edelgard in Fhirdiad?”

To that, he shrugged. “I’m not certain. She was there with a man named Lord Arundel—I think he was her uncle. This was while the major lords of the Empire were trying to make Emperor Ionius into their figurehead—sounds like it worked, too,” he added with a snort. “The story Arundel fed the king was that they were seeking asylum.” He broke off, mouth twisting like what he had picked up from the serving tables (something full of meat and beans and peppers) displeased him.

Ingrid knew him well enough to guess at another cause for such an expression.

“But?” she prompted, her frown deepening.

“I don’t think my old man ever bought that story,” Felix told her, in so low a mutter that Ingrid had to strain to hear it over the conversations going on around them. “I can’t say what the king thought of it.”

‘Hostage’ was what first entered Ingrid’s mind. She honestly didn’t know what _else_ she was supposed to take away from it. Certainly, leaving the Empire was unlikely to have been Edelgard’s idea, since, given the time the Insurrection of the Seven took place, she could potentially have been as young as eight or nine when she and Lord Arundel crossed the border into the Kingdom. And Edelgard would have made for a valuable hostage, even if her royal siblings were still alive at that juncture. Ingrid knew of no lord, lady, king, queen, or emperor, who would so hastily make forfeit the life of their child, if that child bore a Crest.

(The tales and songs provided another guidepost to this issue. Princesses were often taken hostage, though considering that they were often taken hostage to be wed against their will, Edelgard, a little child at the time that even the most depraved lecher wouldn’t have seen much use in bedding since she could not yet bear children of her own, could not really be termed a straight example. They were always rescued before they could be made to say the vows unwilling, usually by a knight or by their true beloved, though occasionally by a father or brother, or a good-hearted and typically female rogue they met along the way, or a wise old witch they did a kindness to earlier on, or a beast they saved from a trap at the very beginning. They were rescued before they were wed unwilling, and after that, everything was fine. The peril was past, and they could sleep untroubled once more.)

‘Hostage’ was what came to mind, but it was not what came to Ingrid’s lips. One did not speak of such things in such a place as this. Ingrid could think of several rhymes involving loose lips and needles and thread and knives, and had _no_ desire to live those out herself.

“Why don’t you talk to her?” Encouraging Felix towards being more sociable was typically a lost cause, and for whatever reason, not well-understood to herself, she kept trying to do it anyways. “She might be happy to see you again.”

But Felix shook his head vigorously. “I only met her twice, and we didn’t get on. And—“ he locked eyes back on Edelgard, who was chatting with Petra and Dorothea “—she’s changed.”

“How can you tell she’s changed if you only met her twice?” Ingrid pressed skeptically.

And, still eyeing Edelgard as if he could not quite decide what to make of her, Felix told her, “Her hair was brown when I knew her.”

Ingrid stared at him; her stomach lurched unpleasantly. “What?”

Felix hunched his shoulders. “You heard me. When she was a child, her hair was brown. She wasn’t so pale, either.”

Ingrid would have thought he was trying to wind her up, except Felix _didn’t_ wind people up, and he wasn’t one to make up such a bizarre lie. Instead of to him, she looked to Edelgard, still sitting at her place at the table, no longer chatting, now silent.

The morning had dawned cloudy, with a breeze lightly scented with rain. Some clouds must have fled for the horizon, or else been burned away, for light lanced the stained glass windows overlooking the fishpond, casting dappled fairy-shadows to dance across the floors and the tables and the distant wall. Edelgard sat among the shimmering spots of red and violet and green and gold, but not one of them brought their color to her form. Instead, her hair shone faintly in the light, gleaming as if wet.

Give her a gray mantle and a corpse-candle, make her cheeks more sunken, and she could easily have been a ghost. She just sat there, so pale and so still, and Ingrid’s eyes kept returning to her silver-white hair, and no matter how she tried, she could not keep her troubled mind from returning to ghosts.


	3. Chapter Three

Felix’s revelation had been the worry of the morning, but Ingrid had put it away after the morning was spent, and truth be told, she’d not thought much about Edelgard for about the next two weeks. Edelgard was a phantom in the back of Ingrid’s mind, a flash of light at the edge of vision. The memory of light on silver-white, almost translucent hair, illuminating but not coloring, tugged at her when she saw water. A smooth, deep voice was recalled in the cathedral when Ingrid sang hymns with the rest of the congregation. Remembered power in remembered arms was recalled to her when she trained with a lance or a sword. But there was no time to spar, so those thoughts must be put to bed.

No time to spar with someone outside of her own class, and indeed, barely any time to spar with people _in_ her class. Ingrid’s cousin had not been joking when he told her that the workload would be absolutely brutal if she didn’t keep on top of it; already, Ingrid had so much work to do just with reading and writing assignments that not a single day had gone by that hadn’t seen her devoting at least three hours of her time to those assignments, just to keep from falling behind. She couldn’t take the books from the library home with her to study more closely, of course, but she would still have her notes, and many years ahead to make use of them. And by the time she went back home, the combat training she underwent would no doubt be ingrained in her mind, easily recalled when she trained.

Thinking about it felt almost like cursing herself to failure, but she really could become a knight with these skills, couldn’t she? As she learned of melee combat, of fighting on horseback and astride a pegasus, as she learned of tactics and strategy and how to survive on her own in the wild, as she learned military history and political history and religious history, knighthood seemed a dream more attainable than ever before. Ingrid did not know all the skills a squire might learn during their apprenticeship, but as Glenn had said, there were more ways than just the one to earn your spurs.

(Glenn had never studied at the Officers Academy, and now that she was here, Ingrid regretted that bitterly. Maybe if he had, he’d—)

Yes, she thought to herself, as she went to her basin early in the morning, this could really be the way.

And sometimes, early in those mornings, she would pause over the basin after washing her face and stare into her reflection in its depths. She had a mirror in her room in the dormitories, but Ingrid had always preferred her reflection in water to her reflection in glass. While it was not as clear, while it shivered somewhat, something about it spoke more truly.

She was not the child she had once been; that much was certain. Ingrid was no longer the child who knew nothing of loss and of grief, whose reflection would have shown her nothing of care or weariness. She could see both behind her eyes, though the rest of her face bore the smoothness of youth. But she was hale, and hearty, and she thought she could steel her resolve, if she must. She could be a knight, if she but found the roads unbarred.

Of course, it would be easier to find her way onto those roads if she and her class were assigned missions that saw them facing actual combat. But the Blue Lions’ mission for the month had been to escort a merchant’s caravan to a town some twenty miles southeast of the monastery, and the Golden Deer had had something similar. Only the Black Eagles would face battle under the waning of the Harpstring Moon.

Ingrid wished she could have gone with them. Those the Black Eagles did battle with against were the same pack of bandits who attacked the house leaders at the very beginning of the school year, and Ingrid would have loved dearly to pay them back for trying to kill the future king of Faerghus. On top of that, they’d chosen to make their camp in the Red Canyon, of all places. Information on the Red Canyon was sparse, even in the monastery’s gloriously expansive library, but Ingrid knew it was a deeply holy site, off-limits to all but the few whom the Archbishop allowed to set foot on that hallowed ground. Ingrid was neither Mercedes nor Marianne’s equal for piety, but she knew sanctity, and she knew desecration. The latter could not be suffered. The perpetrators could not be suffered to live. It was the duty of any knight, be they true, to wash clean any defiled holy site with crimson blood.

It was important to protect those who could not protect themselves; Ingrid knew that. What she had done this month was important. There was little glory to it, though, and she would need all the glory she could heap upon her name if she was to be a knight.

Not everyone shared her goals; Ingrid knew that, as well. She did not expect for all of the Black Eagles to return to the monastery reveling in their success. She could think of at least one whom she knew would not, and thought she could name a second, though she did not know him well enough to know for certain. But she had thought there would at least be satisfaction in a job well done, satisfaction taken in the cleansing of a holy place. Dorothea’s pinched, pallid face in the reception hall, when first Ingrid saw her after both of their classes had returned from their missions, spoke of something different.

‘Injuries’ surged forward in Ingrid’s mind, ‘deaths’ slinking along after it, and her stomach twisting itself into knots came up third. As far as Ingrid knew, none of the Black Eagles save Edelgard had had any experience with true combat, and even Edelgard’s was limited to the one, unless there was something Ingrid did not know. Their professor was tested and true, a seasoned warrior with the scars to prove it, but she was one woman and not much older than her students. Conditions on the battlefield were fluid, ever in flux, and for all that Professor Melusine was a seasoned mercenary, she was also a young one, and not a soothsayer, besides. Anything could happen. Anything could go wrong. (Anyone could end up a rent, blooded suit of armor, with nothing else left to tell of life or death.)

Suddenly, Ingrid’s stomach had gone from twisting knots to churning so violently that Ingrid had to take a deep breath against the sickly, sloshing specter of nausea. _Do not assume, do not assume…_ She knew nothing, until she went up to Dorothea and _asked_.

“Dorothea?” Given how abstracted Dorothea appeared to Ingrid’s eyes, the speed with which Dorothea registered Ingrid’s presence was surprising, and encouraging enough to spur Ingrid on to ask further: “Are you well?”

Dorothea blinked, but it would seem her background as an opera singer had imbued her with an actor’s ability to change tack quickly, for the pinched quality of her face was replaced with a smile albeit one dimmed by her continued pallor. “Oh, Ingrid! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Her smile widened slightly, to reveal a thin strip of teeth. “Yes, I’m fine. I just—“ her smile faltered slightly, the pitch of her voice dipping “—haven’t been getting a lot of sleep for the last couple of nights.”

Ingrid would not pretend to know exactly what quality of life Dorothea had enjoyed in Enbarr, but Ingrid could guess that Dorothea had little experience sleeping out in the open. She could also guess that it wasn’t any more comfortable for Dorothea, waking up with a rock she hadn’t earlier been aware of digging into her spine, than it was for anyone else. (Ingrid herself had never slept out in the open, not truly. Even on this month’s mission, the situation had been such as to allow for tents to be packed and raised. Sharing a tent with Annette and Mercedes had been _interesting_. Professor Hanneman’s raincloud-sullen mood after spending the night sleeping in a tent had been even more _interesting_.)

“I don’t think anyone can be truly prepared for the first time they sleep away from a bed,” Ingrid said gently, while wondering to herself if the Black Eagles had even taken tents with them. Even this far south, the nights were a little chilly at this time of year, and someone from the heart of the sunny south might feel that cold as something more akin to winter’s sting.

But Dorothea shook her head, her mouth twisting in a smile more lively and more sardonic than what she had displayed before. “That’s not the problem. Trust me, Ingrid; I know _all_ about sleeping on the ground.”

 _You?_ Ingrid couldn’t believe that of sleek, perfectly-coiffed and perfectly-made-up Dorothea, with her varnished fingernails and her glossy black hair and her melodious voice. The image just didn’t fit.

The two images were irreconcilable in Ingrid’s mind, and it seemed Dorothea had let fly more than she intended to say, for she froze, eyes darting all over Ingrid’s face, before clearing her throat and fixing an amiable smile to her face. “That’s not the problem. I might be picky about men—“ the gleam in her eyes as her smile widened was akin to polished glass “—but I’m not picky about where I sleep. Just give me a pillow and a blanket, and I will have no complaints to give you in return.” Her smile faltered, then died, her long hands fidgeting with her pleated skirt. “Our mission… Well, it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be.”

The worries that had been momentarily forgotten surged forward once more, more powerful for having been pent up. “Are you alright? Were any of you hurt?”

Dorothea didn’t shrug, not quite, but the slight, disaffected roll of her shoulders suggested it. “Not really. Not badly,” she amended. “Ferdie sprained his ankle on the way out, but he was feeling good enough on the way back to brag about having fulfilled his ‘duties as a noble.’” And her eye roll and the irritably sing-song timbre of her voice told Ingrid exactly what Dorothea thought of _that_.

“It… It is the duty of the faithful to defend our holy sites,” Ingrid pointed out. An impulse she didn’t quite understand saw her craning her neck to check the reception hall for anyone who might be watching them, or listening to their conversation. Only when she saw that the few people in the reception hall with them were absorbed in their own conversations or activities did she return her attention to Dorothea. “You did well.”

A short, huffing breath, not quite a laugh, not quite what else it could have been, escaped Dorothea’s mouth. “Bern’s not doing so great.” How could a trained singer have such a brittle voice? “Lin’s doing even worse. Edie’s trying to act like everything’s normal, but I don’t believe that for a second. Me, I—“ she sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, trying and, to Ingrid’s eyes, failing to steady herself “—that was not what I thought it was going to be. None of it seemed real until we were there, and then he was dead, and I didn’t…” She stared down at the ground, crumpling the hem of her skirt in her hands. “I just didn’t…”

“You didn’t throw up, did you?” All the tales Séverin and Glenn had told Ingrid were coming back to her now, of the way some young knights acquitted themselves after making their first kill.

Dorothea raised an eyebrow. “No…” Confusion saturated her voice.

“Then you did better than a lot of knights do when they first kill someone,” Ingrid reassured her.

Or tried to. The way Dorothea suddenly stiffened, Ingrid didn’t think it had quite hit the mark. “You’re sweet, Ingrid, but that doesn’t help me. I don’t think it can change me. Or the Church.”

“The… Church?” Ingrid couldn’t quite resist the urge to scan the hall again. The prickling sensation on the back of her neck wasn’t helping matters.

“Oh, don’t listen to me.” Dorothea waved a hand dismissively. “I was never what anyone would call pious—didn’t attend church much as a child, didn’t attend church much when I was older unless I was going with Manuela, didn’t say my prayers, either; I don’t even like the hymns that much. But you know, when I took the entrance exams to come here, I never thought the Church would use me to kill people.”

The strain of disquiet that had wormed its way into Dorothea’s voice on the last few words was utterly alien to Ingrid. A knight fought at the command of their liege lord, and she would never have thought to sully the vows of loyalty sworn to bind them together by calling it ‘use.’ A knight served at the pleasure of their liege lord, and the liege lord ordered them onto the battlefield as they would. Knights errant could be brave and true, but they were only masterless if their king was a tyrant or if all the lords they could have served were dead. A knight’s place was found serving a master. To call it ‘use’ implied manipulation or exploitation.

Surely, it must be the same with the Church. The Archbishop was the speaker of the Goddess’s will, for as long as the Goddess was still too grieved over human wickedness to return to this world of humanity. The faithful were to her as knights were to their liege lords. Where she directed them, they went. What she asked of them, they did. And those who carried the Goddess’s blessing within their veins were doubly bound to obedience, for this sign of favor that the Goddess had bestowed upon them must be repaid with service in the Goddess’s name.

Whatever became of Ingrid, whether she became head of House Galatea with her husband absorbed into her family, or she was wed to another house and became a member of it instead, she was the only member of her house who could safely wield their ancestral Relic. Lúin was her birthright, if her father did not deem it better that it stay in the custody of House Galatea, in hopes of one of her brothers siring a Crest-bearing child. Lúin was Ingrid’s birthright, but the lance only existed because of the Goddess’s mercy on sinful man, and Ingrid’s Crest only existed within her because of that same mercy. She must do justice.

(Her Crest was more highly prized by others than by her, she sometimes thought. Just like Ingrid sometimes thought that the suitors asking after her hand after Glenn’s death valued her Crest more highly than anything else about her, save perhaps her fertility. She could not remember a single conversation she had had with them—not that there had been many; they had been far more engrossed in negotiations with her father—that had not led to her Crest, somehow. She did not dwell on it much. Dwelling on it invited thoughts and sensations she would sooner not contemplate. Her father would find a good husband for her. She believed that. For all that the notion filled her with some squirming ambivalence, she believed that. He would not choose so unwisely as all that.)

Dorothea’s disquiet was, to Ingrid, as alien as the surface of the moon. She knew not what to do or say to remedy it, and it did not seem to her as if Dorothea expected, or wanted, her to remedy it. Ingrid nodded awkwardly to Dorothea, and went on her way.

It was Sunday, and Ingrid did not know exactly where to go to find Edelgard. She was, by all accounts, the very model of studiousness, and she could easily have been in the library or in her classroom. She did not shirk her chores, either, in spite of her royal upbringing, so wherever the chore roster took her this week, she could have been there. Ingrid knew that she herself was due in the stables in a few hours (And experience told her she’d be wise to avail herself of lunch _before_ then). The grounds of the monastery were vast, and Edelgard could have been anywhere; the only place she wasn’t likely to be was in her room in the dormitories.

If only because it was so close to the reception hall, Ingrid checked the classrooms first. As it turned out, that had been the correct choice.

Being on the far right of the row of classrooms, the Black Eagles’ class had the advantage of windows in both the back and the right-hand side of the room. Whenever the sun was up from over the horizon, whenever it was not shrouded behind a veil of clouds, the room was lanced with light. Stained glass as nearly all the windows were in the monastery, the classroom was thick with fairy-shadows, shimmering, quivering, dancing.

There, in the midst of all that, examining something written on the chalkboard, was Edelgard.

Just as before, in the dining hall, the colors of the fairy-shadows did not touch her, leaving her white and black and red, pale and still. Where the light had touched her slightly then, now, she glowed, haloed with a nimbus of white light, tinged slightly with gold, though that gold, too, did not alleviate the pallor of her face or hair.

Ingrid stood silent and still in the doorway, feeling as if she had stumbled upon something she was not meant to witness, something her eyes would only sully, though there was no reason for such thoughts to cross her mind. An odd, prickling sensation crept up her arms and legs as she watched Edelgard standing there, like someone rubbing their fingertips over her skin. Morning light had cut through the sky that day in the dining hall, but it had been dim from clouds and dimmer thanks to the distance that stretched out between the windows and the tables. This morning light was fuller to waxing and undimmed by any cloud or so great a distance, and bathed in it, Edelgard had not the wan luminescence of a ghost, but the piercing brightness of a brand of flame.

Ingrid bit back a sigh, relieved to see her face. It wouldn’t have done for the future Adrestian emperor to fall here. Beyond the uproar that this would have caused, Fódlan would have been left all the poorer if Adrestia fell into a succession crisis after Emperor Ionius’s death. And she…

Well. Ingrid had confirmed that Edelgard had returned from the battlefield no worse for wear. She’d not trouble her, and so, she left her be.

-

As uninterested as Ingrid was in causing others trouble (at least trouble they hadn’t brought upon themselves with their behavior), it seemed that trouble was determined to find her. Such became clear a few days later.

She should not have given over thought to marriage, or the sort of man her father might find for her. She’d jinxed herself, and this was the result, sitting inked in parchment in her hands.

 _‘My dearest Ingrid_ …’

The words were familiar, though Ingrid had not read more than the first paragraph, and didn’t think she’d find it in herself to read the rest for some time, yet. She read the first paragraph, and then set the parchment down on her nightstand, every muscle in her body screaming at her to crumple it in her grasp, and she needed no more than that paragraph to understand _exactly_ what the rest of the letter would read. He had spoken of it to her, in no uncertain terms, before sending her away to this place.

Ingrid knew what her father wished of her, and she knew its importance. She knew not how her father had raised the money to send her to the Officers Academy in the first place, but she had overheard Raphael and Leonie talking about how _they_ had raised the money to come here, and the idea of her family going into debt for her sake made Ingrid feel sick. She did not know just how far her father had had to stick his neck out to send her here, and he would never tell her no matter how she asked, and that made her feel sick, as well. Whatever she could do to repay that kindness, she would.

Her father hadn’t been wrong when he said that the heirs to some of the greatest and richest territories in the Empire and the Alliance would be attending the Academy this year. …And Ingrid had not been wrong in her judgment, quickly formed though it might have been, that none of the young men here were the sort whom she thought she could live happily with as their wife. Some of them, she thought she could tolerate, but that was not the same as being happy, not the same as what the moments of tenderness she had witnessed between her parents spoke of. Others, she thought she might have to strangle if she spent so much as a year living as their wife, let alone potentially the rest of her life.

(Judging by his never having approached her again, it would seem that Lorenz still regarded Ingrid as too poor and too unladylike for his exacting standards. This was a great comfort to Ingrid. He’d made a nose-upturned remark about the bride price her father had resorted to demanding from her suitors about a year and a half ago, and Ingrid would hate it so much if she had to be sent home if she turned to the heir of one of the most influential territories in the Alliance and knocked out all of his front teeth.)

Ingrid looked to the wall separating her room from Marianne’s, and sighed, half in exasperation, and half in some tired whim she did not really understand. Marianne wasn’t much of a talker, and what little speech could be coaxed from her bespoke a borderline-frightening lack of self-regard, but Ingrid had spent enough time in the stables with her to know that she was gentle with animals—she even brightened around wyverns, where Leonie and Dimitri eyed the beasts warily—and thought her a kinder person than Marianne seemed to think herself.

If Marianne was a boy, all of Ingrid’s problems would be solved, because Ingrid thought that a boy with Marianne’s temperament would be far more agreeable as a husband than the likes of _Lorenz_. That boy’s self-regard would need some bolstering, but wives were supposed to be a support to their husbands, were they not? (She thought of ‘partners,’ and then spent the next minute or so trying very hard not to.)

Well, maybe there would still be some bumps along that road. Ingrid was not a gossip by nature, but her father’s long search for a husband for her had enlightened her to some facts that she thought would have otherwise remained mired in shadow. Margrave Edmund was ambitious, looking to further elevate the place of his house in Alliance politics. It might have taken some doing for him to accept Ingrid as a daughter-in-law, Crest-bearing though she might be, in the face of her house’s poverty and its lesser importance compared to the likes of Fraldarius, Gautier, and Rowe.

All this was fantasy. It wasn’t going to help her, and it made her feel strange, besides, like her skin didn’t fit properly.

She must do her duty. The winter was never kind to her home, nor her family, and her parents and brothers and grandmother’s faces would be pinched with hunger come the snow. The winters to come after it would be no kinder, if they could not find greater prosperity. It was up to her. She must do her part.

But Ingrid wished, too, that her father understood how important it was to her that she was _here_ , learning among the other students of the Academy. She knew why he had wanted her here, knew what he had hoped to gain for the family from it, but he knew also how she longed to become a knight—they were well past the point where he could pretend that it was the whim of a child. Students came to the Officers Academy to _learn_ ; her father must know that. She just wished he would acknowledge it.

 _If there was a queen at court, he would have sent me to Fhirdiad years ago, and never countenanced the idea of letting me come here_.

If there had been a queen at court, then the circumstances that saw her father regard this place of learning as being more valuable for its ability to grant her easier access to eligible young men would never have come to pass. If there had been a queen at court, Ingrid would still be betrothed to a man who considered husbands and wives ‘partners,’ and she would need not fret.

But there was no use indulging in what-ifs. Ingrid had a letter that wanted answering, and leaving it unanswered would have been cruel; the miles between Garreg Mach and Galatea territory were great enough in number that her father could not just ride south if he feared some ill had befallen her.

Ingrid knew she must reply to him, and soon. How to do so graciously, without saying something that spat in the face of their family’s hopes, was another matter.

Well, she had enough paper at hand to make drafts. Many drafts, if need be.

-

Quieter by far were the nights in Garreg Mach than the nights at home. At home, there was a castle, yes, and wide strips of green, including a paddock, separating the keep from the inner walls, from the houses and shops that clustered around that wall like lichen clinging to a mountainside. But the town was no more than half a mile off, and sound traveled with clarion clarity in the cool, thin air of night. There was an inn within hearing distance of Ingrid’s chamber, and on mild nights when she benefited more from opening her windows to the air, she could hear every last laugh of every last patron who ducked outside for fresh air. She could hear every last whinny of every last tired horse brought to rest in the stables. She could hear every last shout of dismay or anger of every last careless lout who was tossed out—sometimes, literally—after going too long without paying their tab.

Fhirdiad was louder at night. Ingrid remembered that clearly, for all that it had been years since she last set foot in the capital. Be she housed in an inn or in guest chambers in the palace, there was always some noise, some niggling sound that made sleep harder to come by. Ingrid had never quite known how Dimitri stood it, for when _she_ stayed in Fhirdiad, she was lucky if she got so much as five hours of sleep in a single night. (There were tales aplenty that told of princesses who were incredibly finicky about their beds, and if you listened carefully, you could always discern a distinct tut-tutting behind the words. Ingrid did not think those tale tellers understood how miserable it was to be unable to sleep soundly unless unfulfillable conditions were met.) Fhirdiad was louder, and whenever Ingrid returned home from it, the noise she heard from her chamber window seemed blessedly faint by comparison. But still, it was marked.

Quiet swallowed up the nights that descended upon Garreg Mach, like some dark mouth come from the void to devour the world. There was no curfew on the students, but there wasn’t really anything to do that would have seen most students staying out too long after dark. ( _Most_ students, and indeed, after getting caught out by Professor Melusine one time—as it turned out, her room downstairs was in a very specific, and for one student, very _inconvenient_ location—and yelled at twice by Dimitri and Felix, Sylvain had thought better of bringing girls back to his room at all. Where he was going now, Ingrid didn’t know, and was too enamored of her own rest to find out, but she occasionally woke deep in the night to the sound of footfalls in the hall outside, and Ingrid could guess easily at who it was. Why he didn’t fear more the fact that her room was closest to the stairs and that she would always be able to hear him coming up, Ingrid did not know.) The only people who really had any business outside more than an hour after dark, this time of year, were the guards on night duty, and Ingrid had never gotten the impression that they were _supposed_ to be noisy when they went about their duties.

A long, serpentine path across empty fields separated the monastery proper from its associated town. The grounds of the monastery themselves were vast, and the dormitories were not at all a stone’s throw away from the entrance hall. Ingrid thought that, from her room in the dormitories to the town on the slopes below, there might have been a distance of two miles. And two miles seemed to do what half a mile could not, and swallowed up all the noises you would expect of a town at night into inky nothingness. When Ingrid woke in the night to a silent, starlit gloom, blankets pulled about her and the walls free from the battering of the wind, when she woke to that darkness and took a slow, drowsy breath, she could have believed herself the only person alive in the world. Balancing on the narrow edge between wakefulness and sleep, Ingrid could easily have believed that the morning would dawn gray and misty and beautifully desolate and utterly empty of people.

Not a tale fit for songs, that. Not a life fit to live, that. But for a time, at least, there would have been some peace to be found in solitude.

Some nights, it was like that.

Some nights.

Tonight, such an illusion would never have found the ground to take root.

When the sound came, Ingrid thought it at first to be part of her dream. She… she wouldn’t really remember what she’d dreamt of when the drowsy stiffness of wakefulness overtook her. It was just that, in the moment, while she was still locked in the dream, the sound had seemed natural to it. Of course she would hear such a thing within the gray haze of the dream. Why shouldn’t she?

Then, another like it peeled, high and thin and faint, but this time loud enough to jar the haze of the dream and banish the phantom cobwebs from Ingrid’s eyes. She woke in the half-blind dark, the light of the full moon throwing pale color through panes of the solitary window in her room. Her limbs were leaden and her chest heavy and her eyes made fantastical shapes out of the shadows that clustered about the ceiling.

The noise that had woken her reverberated in her mind for several moments as Ingrid struggled to master herself and find full wakefulness. She turned it over, frowning as she propped herself up on her elbows.

A third, more raucous, with the sharply demarcated ending of its owner finding their way back to wakefulness as well, and Ingrid understood what she had been hearing.

Ingrid had never lived and slept in such close quarters with so many other people as she did now. The Galatea’s castle might not be a large one, but the bedchambers were spaced out far enough from each other and the interior walls thick enough that, though Ingrid could hear everything that floated in through her open window, with her chamber door shut, she was deaf to anything that went on in the other chambers. Her awareness was limited to the world without, and the hall beyond her door.

Not so, here. While Ingrid had some questions about the original purpose of Garreg Mach, just from looking at the titanic size of the compound, the dormitories had clearly been built much later, in less perilous times, and had not been built to withstand a siege. The second floor of the dormitories was closer kin to some of the nicer inns Ingrid had stayed in in her time, except that it was cleaner and more sturdily built and Ingrid saw not a muddy alley or a stable and compost heap if she opened her window, but a moonlit strip of green. You could hear what was going on several doors down, if you listened closely. If things at the opposite end of the hall were loud enough (which was very likely if Sylvain wasn’t _very_ quiet on his way back in at night), Ingrid could hear what was going on down there, without even opening her door.

And what Ingrid had learned in her time here, short though it may be, was that many of her classmates were not the sound sleepers you might have assumed them to be at first glance.

Dimitri’s nightmares, when Ingrid first woke to one, had come as no real shock, once she realized what she was hearing. There was compelling cause for whatever dogged his steps within his dreams. That was at the other end of the hall, and sharing a wall with Marianne’s room at _this_ end of the hall had seen Ingrid awaken in the night to faint, choked-back sobs, or the dull thuds of footfalls upon wooden floorboards as Marianne paced back and forth, back and forth, from twilight to the small hours.

Felix occasionally emerged from his room in the morning pale and irritable, blinking against the sun with the intense resentment of someone who would have liked another hour of rest. Sylvain sometimes looked much the same, minus the resentment radiating from his skin almost like steam, and in his case, given what he was doing with his time, Ingrid didn’t really think he had anyone but himself to blame. Some days, Claude and Hubert showed themselves to the morning with the pinched pallor of people who stayed up too late reading, or perhaps stayed up too late for other, less benign purposes. There had been three or four days when Caspar’s limbs trembled with the paradoxical restlessness of someone who had spent the whole night waiting for sleep, never found it, and then waited for the sun for better uses with which to put his time. Marianne always looked worryingly sleep-deprived, her eyes ringed with dark, almost bruise-like circles even on mornings after nights when all was silent in her room. Dimitri was often pale before breakfast, his courtesy noticeably strained.

Even the others, though Ingrid had only heard noise from their rooms in the night once or twice, occasionally walked out into the morning looking like they had spent the whole night battling their demons. …Whatever demons the likes of _Hilda_ might have, Ingrid could not imagine, but everybody had them, regardless of how trivial they might seem to other people.

To Ingrid’s ears, what she heard this night sounded distinctly feminine. It did not fit Marianne’s voice; even high as that peeling cry had been, it was much too deep for Marianne. Too deep for Hilda, as well.

Shaking off the longest-lasting bonds of sleep, Ingrid swung her legs and rose from her bed.

She paused over the unlit candle on her nightstand only a moment. Her weekly allotment of candles was larger here than it had been at home, but Ingrid still shied away from the idea of wasting them needlessly. Besides which, she was familiar enough by now with the layout of her room to walk through it in the dark without tripping over anything, and the halls were unfurnished, so no danger of tripping out there, either.

Feeling like a child sneaking out past her bedtime (the absurdity of that feeling wasn’t enough to make it dissipate; nothing would, before the rising of the sun), Ingrid slowly pressed open her bedroom door, wincing at the rusty squeal of the hinges, the unwanted herald of her own wakefulness. She found the strip of hall below the first staircase much the same as she had found her room: quiet, illuminated only by the pallid light of the full moon filtering through the row of windows. In between those pools of light, all light dropped off into inky nothingness. Whenever Ingrid took a step into it, she expected her leg to go up to the knee in dark water.

The stairs were hardly any less inclined to creaking and squeaking than the hinges of her doors, but restraining herself to light footfalls gave Ingrid somewhat more control over the noise than she’d had when she pushed open the door. No one else was opening their doors demanding she be quiet, and Ingrid would count that a victory.

As she mounted the stairs, there flared in her vision the single, pulsing light of a candle flame, and the shimmering nimbus of the clear glass case that encompassed it. A lantern, and the only people who’d have a lantern in hand at this hour were…

Ingrid watched in silence as Professor Melusine rapped her knuckles twice on Edelgard’s door, and then as that same door creaked open and a long sheet of pale hair flowed out like a shroud. The light painted Professor Melusine a delicate gold, but Edelgard still carried with her the pallor of moonlight, white and faint. Her face was hidden from sight.

Professor Melusine murmured something in her low voice, too quiet for Ingrid to hear. Edelgard nodded choppily in response, and opened the door a little wider to let her professor inside. Candlelight glowed from inside the door, a soft circle of light that grew more angular and more intense as the door was slowly pushed shut again, until, at the last, Ingrid had to blink against the piercing sliver of light lancing into her eyes, before the door clinked shut, and she was left once more with puddles of moonlight amidst darkness.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : I can’t really think of a specific thing to call Ashe’s situation as outlined in this chapter, other than the generic warning: ‘some viewers may find this content upsetting. Other warnings include: the awful background noise of living under an authoritarian governing body.]

“It is important,” Professor Melusine said, in a typically low, quiet voice that managed yet to ring out across the whole of the training grounds, “that you understand how to respond against a variety of weapons. You will not go your whole life engaging solely against swords, or lances, or bows, or axes, nor magic, nor the cestus—the battle-gauntlet,” she elaborated, dipping her head slightly to one side as she walked down the middle of the twin rows of students she had had line up for inspection. “You must be able to adapt to the ever-changing conditions of battle. This includes knowing the strengths and weaknesses of all weapons, and how to capitalize on them. Later, we will repeat this lesson with bows and spells. For now, the melee will suffice.”

Neither Professor Hanneman nor Professor Manuela were trained warriors. Both were skilled mages, and each had learned the use of physical weapons; that much was true. But Professor Manuela was a physician whose magic was geared towards healing, and her skill with a sword towards sport and the occasional, regrettable need for self-defense. Professor Hanneman’s study of magic had been largely academic, and his experience of the bow had not become any less a thing of sport than it had been when Ingrid first arrived here. They could help the students who wanted to learn to use magic to heal, and the students who wanted to learn magic spells to use in combat, but when it came to physical weaponry, they must needs defer to other instructors.

Such it had been since the beginning, but this was the first time the three classes had been called to the training grounds all at once, and by the newest professor, no less. Professor Jeritza was nowhere to be seen, and though Alois and Gilbert and a few of the other knights were in the training grounds with them, they were standing under the pillars, holding back. It was clear who was running this show.

Ingrid had yet to see, really see, what Professor Melusine could do, in terms of combat or in teaching. Ingrid had always been sent to other combat instructors, to strange Jeritza or stern Seteth or somber Gilbert. Even Captain Jeralt had led a few training sessions, much to Leonie and Ferdinand’s delight, just judging from the way they’d spoken of him later in the dining hall.

Herself, Ingrid’s feelings after coming away from a training session overseen by him had been… mixed. The tales of Captain Jeralt’s battle prowess and experience had not been exaggerated. If anything, they undersold his skill and knowledge, for there had not been a single question a student had, the answer of which had not immediately come to Captain Jeralt’s lips. The Blade Breaker was a rare specimen among men; Ingrid thought it would have taken nearly anyone else centuries to accumulate the knowledge he gave voice to. But for such a great knight, the attitude he carried with him onto the training grounds was jarring. Not at all what Ingrid expected had it to be, and had it not been for her own determination, she thought it might have dampened her own ability to take away from the sessions what she needed to.

From flat tone, frequent sighs, the tense set of his shoulders, clenched jaw, and the dullness of his eyes, Captain Jeralt looked like a man who would have rather been anywhere else.

This would be Ingrid’s first time learning directly from Professor Melusine, and she hoped that the daughter would prove a more enthusiastic teacher than the father had been. So far, she had not been disappointed. While enthusiasm was not something that could be readily picked out from the pale, smooth mask of her face, Ingrid could not see either the obvious signs of reluctance and impatience that Captain Jeralt had borne when he led training sessions. Instead, she had the cool, quiet patience of a woman who herself carried not insignificant knowledge of battle, thought it her duty to impart that knowledge, and expected that she would find open ears willing to listen to all she had to say.

Hmm. Ingrid looked down the line, at a few, select faces. Good luck with that.

“Even if you never plan to go into battle with a melee weapon, you should be skilled enough with one to use it at need, should all other weapons fail you.”

Ingrid looked down the line again, her eyes lingering on hands and faces and weapons. Mercedes had selected a wooden training sword cheerfully enough, but her grip was… Hmm. Leonie was standing across from her, lance in hand, and Ingrid wondered if it would take Leonie five second to disarm Mercedes, or three.

Annette had gone for a training axe when told to select a weapon, which was not as much of a surprise as it could have been; Ingrid knew from her studies that House Dominic’s Relic was a warhammer, and a substantial one, at that. Having seen illustrations of it, Ingrid thought that Annette was so small that she’d have to either grow six inches or put on thirty pounds of muscle before she was able to _lift_ Crusher, let alone wield it. But that was Annette’s concern, and not Ingrid’s—and Ingrid had never heard Annette express any special desire to wield Crusher in Ingrid’s hearing, anyway, so she saw no reason why it _should_ become her concern.

Ashe had gone for an axe as well, which was more of a surprise. He typically selected a bow from the racks of weapons in the training grounds, and though there was no choice but melee today, Ingrid hadn’t thought he’d want a weapon so commonly associated with bandits, but Ashe… Well. Given everything that was happening, it was possible that Ashe just hadn’t been thinking too hard about what weapon he might want to take to this training session.

Like Mercedes, Linhardt had selected a training sword from the racks. In contrast, it was clear that he at least knew how to _hold_ a sword, but his hands, white-knuckled, shook as he grasped the hilt, and when Ingrid’s eyes drifted up to his face, she saw it cast with the same salt-white pallor as his knuckles. Dorothea had said he hadn’t done so well on their first mission. Looking at him now, Ingrid wondered just _how_ poorly he’d done. (Professor Manuela held healing tutoring sessions in the evenings on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Mercedes had recently remarked that Linhardt had been attending those much more consistently since the Black Eagles returned from the Red Canyon. That, combined with Petra’s report that Professor Melusine _insisted_ on each of her magic-specialist students being decently proficient with at least one physical weapon, made Ingrid wonder if some sort of bargain hadn’t been struck. For pity’s sake, Ingrid would have come to that arrangement. She wondered if pity came as easily to Linhardt’s quiet, oft-expressionless professor.)

Bernadetta clutched her lance like holding it to her chest would ward off all blows without fail. Raphael laughed and stretched, the metal screws holding his gauntlets together flashing in the light. Marianne held her training sword with more confidence than Ingrid had thought her capable of, though that confidence only showed itself in the grip of her hands and the set of her shoulders, and not in her downcast face. Hubert sat the butt of his lance on the ground, staring straight ahead with a perfectly, admirably neutral expression on his face, but he’d maintained that posture for so long that Ingrid thought she could discern the beginnings of impatience tightening his jaw.

The instructions they received would be important to keep in mind if Ingrid wanted to get the absolute most out of what she learned today. She would not let impatience dull her ears. All in good time. The air was charged with anticipation, but all in good time.

“Even if you are a healer by trade and never expected to take to the front lines—“ and here, Professor Melusine nodded to Linhardt, whose mouth spasmed in a smile-grimace in return “—you must have the skills, the knowledge, and the equipment to extricate yourself from whatever might befall you, should the lines be broken. No plan survives contact with the enemy intact, and the conditions of battle can change at any moment. You must be prepared.”

With just the same quietly expressionless face she had worn when Ingrid met her, something utterly at odds with the edge sharpening her low voice to a fine point, Professor Melusine said to them, “Today’s exercise will be the first step towards greater experience of combat against different weapon types. You will be called out here again. It would be wise to remember what you learn here today.”

She went on with her instructions, and Ingrid marked them well, more so than she might otherwise done, for it struck her now that this was the most she had ever heard Professor Melusine say at one time. The intensity of her demeanor had been obvious from the first moment she spent in the training grounds with the students on this day, and had only grown in strength with each word that issued from her lips. Ingrid could not be certain as to her knowledge or experience on more academic subjects—she had never attended one of Professor Melusine’s lectures, and somehow doubted that she and her father had had many books with them on the road of their wandering life—but her battlefield experience could not be doubted.

Now more than ever, Ingrid wished she could fight by this woman’s side, if only for the pleasure of watching that battlefield experience put into action against the evils of the world. (Mercenary she might be, but Ingrid suspected Professor Melusine would have made a fine knight, if the circumstances of her childhood had been different.) Fighting would have to wait, but having her instruction while she trained would sustain her, for now.

Later, they would spar, but for now, Professor Melusine seemed to have something else in mind.

“Begin,” she said simply, and the room erupted into noise.

Ingrid nodded crisply to Caspar, who stood across from her, and launched into her own speech. “The lance is a short-ranged to mid-ranged weapon, though most lances are better used as mid-ranged weapons, given their length and that the only sharp point is at the head. A javelin is a handy throwing tool, but—“ she smiled to herself, eyeing the smooth, honey-hued training lance in her hands with a by-now more familiar gaze “—this is no javelin. The strengths of a lance lie in the greater amount of damage they can do on striking a target than a sword and the fact that it’s easy for someone wielding a lance to keep an enemy wielding a sword or gauntlets at bay.” The next part was a little harder, for all that she _had_ to do it if she didn’t want it to stand as a mark against her in her academic record. It was part of the exercise, and Professor Melusine seemed to be of the opinion that hearing the words aloud would make them more real. “…The weaknesses of a lance are that most of them can only be used to stab enemies, rather than slash, and many can be turned aside by a stout breastplate or a thick coat or cloak of fur.” Glenn’s armor had not been enough to save him in the end, had it? Had they used a hammer to bash it in and crush his ribs beneath bright steel? Had magic cooked his flesh? Had arrows pierced the flesh that armor could not protect? “It’s difficult to change the course of your lance once you thrust out, so it’s easier for an enemy to leap aside. And if you have a sharp axe and quick reflexes, you can hew the shaft while the lance-wielder strikes out with it, and leave them unarmed.”

Surely, that only befell the unwary. Ingrid would make sure she was never so unaware of her own surroundings as to have her weapon destroyed while still it lied in her hands. Fighting from the back of a pegasus would help with that, surely. If she was quick enough on the ground, no one would be able to touch her, and a strong, healthy pegasus was quicker than any mortal man. (‘Be quick,’ he had said to her, ‘be quick, for your strength is in speed, rather than brute force.’)

These thoughts could not help her in this time, in this place. It was Caspar’s turn, at any rate.

After a few moments of silence on Ingrid’s part (though not of silence in the room; if anything, the volume of conversation seemed to have only grown louder), Caspar started and nodded his head vigorously. “You done? Okay, let’s do this.” He smiled lopsidedly and raised up one, gauntlet-wielding hand from its former place at his side. “Gauntlets are a lot lighter than just about anything else you’ll ever be fighting with, so when I spar with these things, I’ve definitely got the speed advantage. I don’t care what anybody says—“ and for all that, he certainly did shoot an irritated look Linhardt’s way “—height isn’t everything. Taller people weigh more—“ his voice grew increasingly rough with the force of his irritation “—they’re not as fast.”

Ingrid blinked at him. For a moment, she was curious. For a moment. After the moment passed, Ingrid decided she was better off not knowing. At best, it was probably just going to give her a headache.

But still, this tangent did not bear carrying on…

“How does any of that apply to gauntlets?” she asked blankly, fighting to keep her mouth from curving into a frown. (Would that have been too confrontational? Too hostile? Would someone like Caspar have even cared?)

Caspar grimaced, revealing a chipped tooth at the corner of what his curled-back lips displayed. “Sorry; I got carried away, eheh. So, gauntlets.” The look he turned on his training gauntlets was somewhat more subdued than what he had earlier displayed. “Well, I can get a ton of hits in before the other guy knows what hit him, and I’m up close and personal while I’m doing it, so it’s not like I’m gonna _miss_.”

“And weaknesses?”

“Weaknesses…” Caspar said it softly, nose wrinkled, as if he’d spat out something profane. Well, at least the expression wasn’t half as intense as it would have been on Felix’s face. “Well, gauntlets don’t hit as hard as an axe; I noticed that straight away. I don’t think these wooden ones would do _anything_ against an armored knight—not until I get a _lot_ bigger, anyways. And I… can’t think of anything else.”

“I can,” Professor Melusine said softly, and the sudden sounding of her voice, so clearly heard over the din, made Ingrid and Caspar both jump.

Caspar craned his neck to look back and up into her face. “What, seriously?” And Ingrid did not know him well enough to say with confidence whether that sounded like the disappointment of someone who thought he had an unassailable strategy to achieving victory, or if it was the chagrin of someone realizing there was something they’d forgotten.

“I covered this in one of last week’s lectures.” Ingrid did not think she would have been so patient, nor even sounded so patient, were she in Professor Melusine’s place. This, too, must be one of the qualities of a good teacher. “I watched you take notes. You would do better to review them once we are done here today.”

A combination rueful smile and a huff of breath that could have been an equally rueful laugh was Caspar’s response, rather than the anger or indignation Ingrid had expected to encounter. “Yeah, sounds like it,” he said, more quietly than Ingrid had heard thus far. “What are the other weaknesses?” And he’d bounced back. “Come on, Professor; I’ve gotta know this stuff if I want to get stronger.”

Professor Melusine sighed lightly, but obliged him, nonetheless. Obliged the both of them, honestly; Ingrid would like to know this, for her _own_ edification. “That fighting with gauntlets requires you to draw so close to your opponent is a double-edged sword. It leaves you more vulnerable to attacks from a dagger, especially if you are not properly armored. Also—“ and here, Ingrid thought she saw the ghost of a smile flit over Professor Melusine’s face, though it was gone so quickly that it could easily have been a trick of the light “—it is much easier to break your wrist fighting with gauntlets than with any other weapon you will train with in this monastery.”

Ingrid… hadn’t thought about that, actually, and now that it had been brought to her attention, it was all she could think about. About what would happen to a warrior if they bore only battle-gauntlets onto the battlefield, and then broke one or both of their wrists, and they were in the middle of the field with no easy way out, and there were no allied healers close enough nearby to patch them up. Ingrid thought about it. Eventually, she managed to stop.

Across from her, Caspar’s face had taken on a nasty, grayish-green tint. From that, Ingrid could surmise that Caspar was thinking about much the same thing as her—possibly in even greater detail, considering that, unlike her, Caspar actually carried battle-gauntlets onto the field. (Considering that, unlike her, Caspar had actually been given the opportunity to ride out onto the battlefield.) “I didn’t really think about that.”

This time, there was no fleeting flash of a smile to soften Professor Melusine’s face. Though the line of her mouth was perfectly straight, perfectly level, something about it, though Ingrid did not know what, gave the impression of an intense frown. “I gathered,” she murmured. “When you fight with the cestus, or some other battle-gauntlet, you must pick your targets with more care than you would need to if you wielded an axe, instead. Drawing yourself in so close to the enemy opens up many chances for them to strike against you, as well; you must be sure that your fists strike home, with enough force to render counterattack an impossibility. That is where safety lies.”

Now red-faced (was this prompted by some past argument?), Caspar nodded and mumbled something inaudible to Ingrid’s ears, but that Professor Melusine apparently had no trouble discerning. She nodded crisply in return, and moved on down the line to give aid, instruction, and the occasional admonishment to other students.

Ingrid watched her at her work, considering. “Professor Melusine is quite diligent, isn’t she?”

A small laugh jarred from Caspar’s mouth. “’Intense’ is what she is. I tried to fight somebody when we were in the Red Canyon without her say-so; I thought she was gonna rip my head off when she saw me.” He ran the bars of his training gauntlets against each other in contemplation. “Class is more fun than I thought it’d be.” Another laugh, louder and stronger. “Still can’t wait to get here once she lets us out, though.”

Diligence in training was certainly admirable, but Felix had been training here at the same time as Caspar a few times before, and what he’d told Ingrid made her think Caspar was just a _bit_ overzealous. That was Felix’s opinion, as well, and if _Felix_ thought someone was overzealous about training, that… said quite a bit.

“Are you always so eager to train?”

“Heck, yeah!” There was that note of indignation Ingrid had been waiting for, though it sat tattered on the edge of enthusiasm. “I’m gonna have to make my own way in the world; I need all the strength I can get!”

That… didn’t sound right. House Bergliez was afforded a position of high honor and influence within the Empire; the head of the house inherited the position of Minister of Military Affairs, and all the benefits that came from being such an integral part of the Empire’s governance. On top of that, their lands were vast, with many tenant-lords paying their rents to them, and fertile as well; the harvests of Gronder Field would serve to further enrich House Bergliez’s coffers. There should be no need for any of its members to make their own way in the world.

“Are second sons treated so poorly in the Empire?” Ingrid asked, before she realized, really, what she was saying, and before she’d asked herself if that might not offend.

Lucky for her, Caspar didn’t seem too offended, though she could not help but mark the shadow that passed over his face—she didn’t think it had anything to do with a shadow over the sun. “My brother and I don’t really get along, and we had some—“ And then, she stopped himself, mouth clamped tightly shut over what else might have come forth. “It’s gonna be a lot easier for everyone if we’re not butting heads after my father’s retired. And I _want_ to; I want to see what the world has to offer.”

 _Come see it with me_ , Ingrid almost said, fantasizing about life as a partner through hardship rather than as a typical lady-wife, before remembering, and stopping herself.

Second son, who did not get along with the heir, and whom it sounded very much as if would be cast out of the house the moment their father died or set aside the headship of their house. Ingrid knew exactly what her father would have made of that, especially once he factored in that the disfavor Caspar was in with the future head of his house meant that they would be hard-pressed to leverage an affinal connection to House Bergliez.

And Caspar was, though not a bad person, no more to Ingrid’s tastes as a husband than he had been when they met. Not that she was at all certain what those tastes _were_ , and it only now occurred to her that developing tastes at all might not be the wisest thing in the world to do. The man whose wealth would lift their family out of poverty might not be a knight, might not be a man who shared Ingrid’s ideals, and it would be up to her to accept him as her husband, to be dutiful and obedient and pleasing, to accustom herself to him, whatever sort of man he might be. (So long as he was not old enough to have children older than she. That much, even Ingrid would struggle to accept in a husband, though she knew she must, if necessary.)

Her tastes… Unwise as it might have been, Ingrid found her mind drifting to what her tastes might be. Oh, she’d not given this much conscious thought, but she had a few ideas. Of true heart, she desired. Of strong will, she desired. She would have liked someone who could walk and ride alongside her, someone she need not carry even as she carried her own burdens with her. And looks…

Ah, it was useless to dwell on looks. Nothing good ever came of maidens in tales who were dead-set on good-looking men, and refused to consider an ugly one. (It did not escape Ingrid that all the princes and lords or other young men in the tales who wed wives were wed to exceptionally fair women, no matter what they insisted upon. Another thing that sat like ivy overtop her mind.)

Eventually, Professor Melusine was satisfied that everyone had listed off the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen weapons. She bade each of them step to their left, and list them off again.

And so it went, the students moving like the drive band of a spinning wheel. Axes, Ingrid was told, were powerful weapons capable of striking with more force and inflicting more damage than other melee weapons of equivalent quality and materials, but they were also heavier and clumsier, and it took someone with very good aim to ensure that the axe always struck true. Swords were, if crafted with care, lighter than many other weapons, at least to they who possessed proper strength in their arms. They were versatile; most taken onto the battlefield could be used both as slashing and stabbing tools, and Levin swords were effective ranged weapons as well. Like gauntlets, it was hard not to strike at least a glancing blow with a sword, for you must draw in close to your enemies (Excepting the Levin sword). But that you must draw so close to them, like with gauntlets, left you more open to counterattacks.

After a while, repeating the strengths and weaknesses of the lance grew tiresome, but Ingrid could see a definite benefit to this lesson. Had she been previously unfamiliar with these qualities of her favored weapon, by the time this day was done, she would certainly never have forgotten them again.

Needless to say, the second phase of the exercise was greeted with enthusiastic relief by most of the students. The students were bidden to break off into pairs against those who wielded a different weapon than them to spar for the next five minutes. Once those five minutes passed, they would break off, and spar against someone else. “In the future,” Professor Melusine told them, “those sparring sessions will last longer. But for now, it is best you merely comprehend basics.”

And shorter spurts meant that injuries were at least somewhat less likely. Serious injuries were unlikely, between the blunt training weapons they had been given and the heavily padded training gear, of much higher quality than Ingrid had enjoyed at home, that they had been given to wear. The ground rules for this afternoon—no aiming for the face, genitals, hands, or feet—would help as well. But it was better to be cautious, wasn’t it?

Dorothea shot a little smile her way as they lined up against each other. “The training gear looks good on you,” she nearly trilled, vivid green eyes crinkling up into little crescent shapes.

Well, she seemed recovered from the aftermath of her class’s mission to the Red Canyon, even if Ingrid found something about the twinkle in her eyes a little disconcerting, for reasons she couldn’t name. “I prefer them to my uniform. But we should begin; Professor Melusine will be angry.”

Dorothea smiled again, more thinly, rolling her shoulders. “No, Ingrid. She’ll be disappointed. That’s much worse, trust me; she has a _very_ piercing stare, and she always seems to know when we’re doing something we shouldn’t.”

“Have _you_ been doing things you shouldn’t?”

An airy laugh graced the training grounds. “That depends quite a lot on your point of view. Shall we?”

Five minutes later, Dorothea’s skill with a sword had proven utterly unlike what Ingrid had expected. Ingrid had understood her to have some knowledge of magic, and had _thought_ that Dorothea’s background would have precluded much skill with a sword. A wooden sword could be a stage prop, sure, but Ingrid _really_ doubted stage fighting bore more than the most passing acquaintance to the real thing. She’d thought Dorothea a novice, and thought that the month and a half since class had officially begun would not have proven enough time for her to learn to hold her own in sparring.

Here lied the folly of preconceived notions; Ingrid had scored some blows that, were this a real battle with real weapons, would likely have proved fatal, but Dorothea had scored some blows as well.

“Do opera singers have a lot of time to practice swordplay?” Ingrid asked when they were done, and Professor Melusine had given them a couple of minutes to rest before they had to start again, with a different partner.

Dorothea shrugged. Her hair was tied back in a neat knob at the back of her head, smoothly professional where Felix’s was sloppy. “When you’re an opera singer, certain things are just—“ she brandished her sword, regarding the honey-hued blade with a look that was not quite a smile “—needful.”

Next was Caspar, again, and the fight he put up, Ingrid was more prepared for. She had never fought against anyone wielding gauntlets before, and it was a little hair-raising to deal with two raised fists that weren’t necessarily going to strike in the same place. The rule against striking at hands made it a little harder to deal with them, as well, so that Ingrid was left dancing around Caspar’s fists while trying to get a blow of her own in. (Just judging by what she’d heard of him, and what little she’d seen, Ingrid was not at all confident of Caspar’s ability to rein in his strength enough to keep from winding her if he struck her in the chest or her belly. She didn’t want to find out if that lack of confidence was warranted, or not.)

All around her, the training matches were progressing, with mixed results. There were some students, like Felix and Hubert, who had experience, either practical or theoretical, of fighting against all kinds of different weapons. During the few moments she could spare to watch Dimitri, she didn’t see anyone land a blow on him, not even once. He didn’t even look mussed.

But there were others who were not doing as well. A high-pitched, ululating wail reliably told Ingrid where Bernadetta was. Marianne’s posture and her strikes spoke of someone who was clearly experienced with a sword, but she didn’t seem to have the will to put any real force behind them. Mercedes’s performance… was predictable. Given his earlier behavior, Linhardt’s performance… was also predictable, though he did not at any point drop his sword. Hilda alternated between sweetly saying that her opponent needed to go easy on her on account of her fragility, and then, ostensibly without meaning to, hitting them so hard with her axe that they were visibly staggered, and might well have dropped down dead if this was an actual battle and she was wielding an actual axe. And then she’d go right back to saying that she really was too delicate for this, as if she hadn’t very nearly knocked Dedue flat on his back.

 _What an army we’d make_. Oh, but the year was young, yet, and Ingrid was being uncharitable. This was only the first training session of its kind. They’d get better. Bernadetta would improve once she was allowed a bow; Mercedes, Marianne, and Linhardt would improve with magic; Hilda would improve once someone convinced her that no one, absolutely _no one_ , was buying the ‘delicate flower’ act. At least, so Ingrid hoped.

When Ingrid locked eyes with the girl who’d walked up to her for a bout, her skin felt suddenly hot, as if the sun had descended into the room. At the same time, her head felt oddly light, as if she’d been passed ale at her last meal, only to discover too late that it had not been watered down as it ought to have been.

“Have you yet fought against an axe?” Edelgard asked smoothly, gently swinging her axe in a way that could have been to loosen her arm, but looked very much like a flourish. It was not something Ingrid had expected from her, and she found it oddly endearing—something altogether normal for an adolescent girl, rather than her constant cool composure.

“Not yet.” If there was a tremor in Ingrid’s voice, it was inaudible over the other noises in the room, and Ingrid could pretend she had not felt it quiver in her mouth. “Most of our classmates picked out lances or swords.”

Edelgard nodded briskly. “Yes, those are regarded more heroic.”

For the life of her, Ingrid could not discern tone from Edelgard’s voice, though she had strained o listen for it. Neither were there answers to be found in her face; the only deviation from perfect composure was Edelgard’s eyebrows sitting a little lower on her face than they otherwise would have been. So all Ingrid could do was ask, struggling to tamp her tone down from a challenge, “Don’t you fight with a sword, as well as an axe?”

“Hmm?” Those eyebrows shot back up as Edelgard blinked, visibly caught off guard for the first time in Ingrid’s sight. “I… suppose I do.” She smiled slightly, as cool as a spring morning. “I wonder if there is anything to that.” Her smile dropped. “Likely not. A sword is merely a means to an end.”

Now, the urge to challenge was stronger than ever. ‘Merely a means to an end’ was such a _bizarre_ way to describe one of the two favored weapons of the knight, the tool of the faithful, the means by which justice might be meted out and the defenseless protected. ‘Means to an end’ was so… mercenary, and carried a distinctly unsavory undertone, something Ingrid did not wish to confront, something she didn’t wish to name.

_Are there no knights in the Empire?_

Ingrid eyed Edelgard’s hair. _Are there no…_ But she did not know what to wonder about. She was not sure she wished to know.

Ingrid gave a small salute—she had never sparred with royalty before; it seemed the only appropriate thing to do—and with that, they began.

When Ingrid had watched Edelgard train, she had observed the power in her arms, the swift efficiency of her strikes with the axe. She was pleased now to see that her eyes had not deceived her, that the promise of strength had been fulfilled, and that she was now pitted against someone nearly as strong as Hilda had earlier proved herself. Even as Ingrid had to resort to jumping about to avoid the swings, for even the most glancing blow from Edelgard’s axe had been enough to stagger her, her blood pulsed with undeniable excitement. Even as Ingrid’s mind was filled with visions of what could have become of her lance had Edelgard’s axe had been real, her heart raced with something like elation. Here it was, a sparring match against an opponent who was neither obviously less skilled than her, nor obviously going easy on her, and it was _amazing._

More difficult to tell was whether Edelgard derived any satisfaction from the match. Ingrid would not have expected obvious excitement to appear on her face—as the future ruler of the Adrestian Empire, Edelgard would surely have been trained to keep her composure at all times, for the gaffes of an emperor could have much more far-reaching consequences than the gaffes of a mayor or the lord of a single castle. There had not been a single thing Ingrid had not seen Edelgard take seriously; the matter of her composure was, of course, not insignificant. It would be beneath the dignity of the future emperor to be seen taking too much enjoyment from a sparring session. Those in the Empire in the position to make trouble for her politically would have called her a warmonger, or else, too childish for the throne that was to be hers. Of course, Ingrid knew the importance of reputation, knew it a weapon that both you could wield, and could be turned against you; she was a woman, after all, in a position where maintaining her good name was integral to her family’s future fortunes. Of course, she knew the weight of reputation.

(She knew it. Knowledge could not quite dam the disappointment that trickled in through the cracks.)

Beyond Edelgard’s exact feelings on the matter being impossible for Ingrid to decipher, she was pleased to note that at no point during the bout did Edelgard’s strength begin to lag. She had had two bouts before this one, even a training axe could be rather heavy, and with Edelgard’s sheer pallor hinting at a perhaps sickly constitution, Ingrid had wondered if she might not have tired by the time Ingrid got to her—

_Was I trying to get to her?_

—But it seemed that Ingrid need not have worried. Edelgard’s strength was good for fifteen minutes of fighting. Indeed, judging by how little sweat had gathered on Edelgard’s brow by the time they were finished, it looked as if Edelgard would be good for several matches more. This served primarily to make Ingrid acutely aware of the damp trickling down the sides of her face, but she could not help but admire how composed Edelgard could appear after three sparring matches in quick succession. Even with likely training, her stamina must have been truly impressive for her to not even have been breathing all that hard. Ingrid could only hope to someday equal that.

“Have you ever fought in battle conditions before, Ingrid?”

Ingrid would be lying if she had been expecting the question. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been thinking of much of anything beyond how Edelgard’s hair, loose as it was, was barely even mussed; when she realized that she had been that, she put the thought away, far out of sight.

Clearing her throat, Ingrid replied, “No, I haven’t.” Her shoulders stiffened as she went on, “Is it that obvious?”

“Not at first glance.” At least it didn’t _sound_ like the act of throwing a starving dog a bone. “You’ve clearly been training with the lance for several years, even if I’d guess this is your first time sparring against someone with an axe.” Edelgard pursed her lips in consideration. “But I would also say that you don’t always take advantage of openings provided to you.”

Ingrid frowned. “You left me openings to strike _deliberately_?”

A thin smile carved Edelgard’s thin mouth. “Not many. I watched Dorothea and Caspar offer more, and they were clearly _not_ doing so deliberately. I merely wanted to test my suspicions.” More seriously, she added, “If you see an enemy leave an opening like what I left, you shouldn’t hesitate to exploit it. It could mean your death, if you do not.”

Ingrid could easily have cited the ground rules Professor Melusine had laid out before the sparring got underway, but even as the thought came to mind, Ingrid knew that none of the openings Edelgard had left for her would have involved the prohibited areas. Edelgard did not seem the sort of person to lay a trap like that. There was another claim Ingrid could make, besides.

“Some might call it dishonorable,” she said softly, very softly, for she knew the hay some would make of ‘dishonorable’ being uttered anywhere within the vicinity of the Imperial princess, and she did not wish for this to carry, “to seize any advantage that comes your way, no matter what it might be.”

“Hmm.” Edelgard regarded her levelly, her lips slightly pursed. “I wonder about them, too.”

Given that some of the students unused to the rigors of physical combat, Lysithea not alone among them but certainly their chief, were starting to get worn out with just their short breaks, Professor Melusine extended the break after the third match to ten minutes. (Lysithea objected—strenuously—and was summarily and in no uncertain terms overruled.) Most of the students took the opportunity to break off into groups and chat, but Ingrid found herself brimming with unspent energy wanting for an outlet, and she found it easier to set the butt of her lance against the ground and wait, than it would have been to talk.

_What did she mean by that?_

A sliver of golden light cut across the earthen floor, and when Ingrid looked to the door, she paused, eyes riveted upon the newcomer.

She’d said to call her ‘Catherine’ when Ingrid had first come across her, right here, just a few days ago, and though ‘Catherine’ yet sat unwieldy on Ingrid’s tongue, though her mind yet called out ‘Cassandra,’ she would try her best. A Holy Knight of Seiros ought to be called by their holy name, after all. Any less offered up disrespect not just to the Archbishop, but to the Goddess.

And Ingrid had no idea how Cassandra had gone from fleeing her father’s house for implication in a crime she’d obviously had no part in, to the terrible whispers of just what she’d done in the fogs of southern Faerghus, to receiving the name ‘Catherine’ and becoming a Holy Knight, but that was her tale to tell. Though curiosity burned like a coal in her mind, Ingrid would have to wait for Catherine to tell it. But she was sure it would have been a gripping tale, no matter the content.

(And it was so good to see her in this place, the duty and honor of chivalry restored as one of the many swords of the Archbishop. A part of the world felt like it had returned to a more even keel than it had been on for years.)

But Catherine, it seemed, had not come here today to aid the training session. Pity; she would have given them all a lesson Ingrid doubted any of them would ever forget. Catherine swept the training grounds with a mildly interested gaze, but she kept to the shadows behind the pillars and made a beeline for Professor Melusine, instead of speaking to any of the students.

The two women conversed quietly with each other, too quietly for Ingrid to hear from where she was standing. Professor Melusine’s brow was furrowed with something it took Ingrid a moment to identify as worry, for that emotion seemed far out of place on the face of such a person. Catherine looked not worried but grim, and oddly tense, as if she expected an attack to befall her at any moment. She leaned over Professor Melusine’s ear and muttered something; Professor Melusine squeezed her eyes shut and nodded tightly in response.

That was right, Catherine was providing aid to the Black Eagles’ mission this month, wasn’t she?

This was one mission Ingrid was relieved she would not have to take part in. Still, her stomach twisted itself into knots at the very thought of it.

-

The pall over the Blue Lions’ classroom while the Black Eagles were away for the waning of the Garland Moon was so palpable that Ingrid expected to find it tied and knotted tight about her neck. Surely, this must be the sort of thing that could choke the life out of you. Even Professor Hanneman seemed affected by it, for his lectures were shorter and gentler than usual, of late, though he still sent students to collect Ashe from the spot in the cathedral where he was spending virtually all of his free time, these days, praying almost obsessively.

(Ingrid did not dare ask him just what he prayed for. She could think of multiple options, each worse than the last.)

News was difficult to come by. All of Fódlan must have known by now that Lord Lonato had raised a rebellion in his territory, but that was only natural; the Church could hardly be expected to _hide_ the example they would make of him. What was considerably less clear was just _why_ he had raised a rebellion.

The Church had moved quickly to limit the spread of information, where the why was concerned. Control the flow of information, and you controlled the flow of heresy and rebellion, at least to the best of your abilities. The rumor mill was no doubt running at break-neck speed all over Faerghus, judging by the number of things Ingrid had heard just here in Garreg Mach; it could have been utterly chaotic if the Church allowed things to progress unimpeded.

Among the stories Ingrid had heard, there were a few _choice_ tales that she suspected would linger in her mind for the rest of her days.

There was one that posited that Lord Lonato had been bribed by raiders from Sreng, distracting the forces of the Church and Kingdom while Sreng readied for an invasion of ten thousand horsemen and pegasus riders, which might have been of some concern… except that Sylvain had quickly disputed the theory. Sreng, he said, was an inhospitable land, mostly consisting of chill desert, and was no place for horses or pegasi. The deserts of Sreng were home to a beast known as a camel, but the inhabitants used it for transportation, and would never have dreamed of riding them into war; camels were counted entirely too precious for that.

Another theorized that Lord Lonato was under some enchantment that had rendered him the puppet of the bishop of the Western Church. When asked, Professor Hanneman said firmly that he knew of no such magic. The mind was a fickle engine, he had told them, but it was not something that could be altered thus by magic. Magic that altered perception relied on tricking the eyes and the ears; it could not reach the mind. (Ashe’s face had crumpled at that resounding rejection of this latest theory. Ingrid’s stomach churned at the thought of what must be going through his mind.)

And a third tale claimed that Lord Lonato had in fact been dead for years, and someone had claimed use of his face via magic and was using it to make mischief. That… By the Goddess and all her Saints, that was easily the most ridiculous supposition Ingrid had heard this whole time, by a _lot_. Ingrid had only the barest knowledge of magic (she’d not been listening to Professor Hanneman’s lectures long enough to dare claim anything more than that), but even she knew that the very idea of what this tale claimed was rooted in fantasy. Corpses carried some magical power—chivalric tales were not the only ones Ingrid had ever read—but they could not be manipulated in such a fashion. They could neither be puppeteered, nor have parts of them harvested to be used as a mask, without the deception becoming obvious within a matter of days.

There were other whispers that Ingrid lent more credence to. There were some who said that Lord Lonato’s son Christophe, the only child of his flesh, had been executed by the Church for some level of involvement in the Tragedy of Duscur. Some others whispered that no, that story was a lie spun by the Central Church for their own benefit; Christophe had been killed for some other reason, without trial, and without justice.

Ashe had, however little he wished to talk about _any_ of this in earshot of someone else who might make sharp remarks about his connection to Lord Lonato, confirmed that Christophe had been killed a few years prior, and that though his adoptive father had tried to shield him from knowledge of it, he knew the Church to have been involved somehow.

_Could he have been involved in that bloodbath?_

In the same breath as his confirmation, Ashe had insisted, voice cracking, that his brother had been a good man, that he was kind and gentle and would _never_ have been involved in anything that would have brought the wrath of the Central Church down upon him. But Ingrid knew that she would have spoken much the same of her own brothers, of Glenn, if such tales circulated involving them after deaths that the Church had had some hand in, and—

…And, if Christophe Gaspard had been involved with Duscur in any way, the eternal flames were too good for him. Let him burn.

The sheer violence with which that thought had etched itself upon Ingrid’s mind unsettled her when she realized how deeply it had been scored. Her stomach clenched and cringed once more, as it had been doing off and on for days. Those were not the thoughts of a knight. A knight meted justice, and if that justice involved death, so be it, but the white heat of her thoughts were not…

(In tales, the vengeful who let that need become an all-consuming desire either righted their course, or followed the bloody path to their deaths. Glorious deaths, at times, but still, deaths. True heart would seek justice, but not vengeance for its own sake. True heart understood that there were more important things than doggedly following selfish wants and desires. If Ingrid’s heart was to be true, if she was to have the spirit of a true knight, she must put aside what she wanted if it contradicted what must needs be done. If it was something that would consume her, she must put it aside. A true knight could not stand consumed. But Ingrid knew not how she would have ever wrenched herself from the path, if she found herself on it. The tales did not speak of the why in any detail beyond a sudden realization on the part of the guilty that they were wrong; at most, there was some lip service given to a motive, but never elaboration.)

The pall that had descended upon the Blue Lions’ classroom had been palpable from the start, and it only grew stronger with each passing hour. Mercedes’s mother lived in a church close to the eastern border of Gaspard territory, and she hadn’t been able to make contact with her since the news of the rebellion broke loose. Annette was fretting over the possibility of the fighting spilling over into her own family’s lands. Dimitri didn’t speak much of it, but it was obvious to anyone who knew him that it was absolute torture for him to know about trouble in the Kingdom, and yet be unable to do anything about it. He had mentioned once, at the start of the month, that he had known Lord Lonato, which must only compound his frustration.

(Not acknowledged at first, but it could not be discounted: if Felix had known Edelgard when she lived in Fhirdiad, and the king had known of her and her uncle’s presence, was it not possible that Dimitri had known Edelgard, as well? Once he took someone to his heart, there they stayed, forever. Could part of his agitation be worry for her? After all, when he would have known her, she would have been a child, a likely political hostage, and therefore constantly in a position of at least mild danger. A princess, quite possibly literally in a tower. Though Edelgard was clearly competent in combat, first impressions could be powerful.

But oh, Ingrid did wonder what Dimitri made of Edelgard’s hair, if he had known her when it was brown. What he might know. What he might tell _her_ , if she ever asked him what he knew.)

As uncomfortable as the rest of them were, no one could match Ashe for fear or for misery, these days. If Ingrid dredged up all the fear she had ever felt, all the misery that had ever weighted her bones, she would be left with toxic little granules that accounted only to a molehill next to the mountain Ashe could make of his.

It did not help, not in the slightest, that Ashe was highly _visible_ to Garreg Mach’s leadership. There had been talk of taking him hostage to attempt to force Lord Lonato’s unconditional surrender. No secret had been made of this; Ingrid suspected that it had been _intended_ for the news to reach Lord Lonato’s ears. Everyone knew what could, and often did, become of hostages when the person they were being held against failed to fulfill the required terms; the Church (and Ashe) would have been counting on Lord Lonato being an affectionate enough father to not wish to risk his son’s life.

Ingrid understood the logic behind letting the news fly so that it could reach Lord Lonato’s ears, but the color drained from Ashe’s face every time it was said anew in his hearing, and Ingrid’s stomach had started to boil after a few instances of _that_. Did these people not understand how cruel it was to talk about someone’s potential _death_ in earshot of them? Did they not understand how cruel it was to terrorize the innocent?

Likely not, considering that Ashe had been hauled off for questioning when news of the rebellion was first confirmed, and then not released for more than six hours. The first round of questioning had apparently not satisfied his interrogators, for he had been taken away for further questioning on several occasions since that time. He wouldn’t speak of what they had asked him, just like he wouldn’t speak of what they expected to find when guards were sent once, twice, three times, to search his room.

_“Again?” Ingrid asked wearily, when she saw Ashe standing outside of his room, and the door standing open. It was a stupid question, honestly. His face was stretched tight into a mask of anxiety, his hands wringing the hem of his jacket, and Ingrid could hear noise coming from inside the room._

_“Again,” Ashe muttered, staring, transfixed in his room._

_Ingrid came to watch, as well, and was soon just as transfixed._

_Ashe’s bedsheets were strewn on the floor, the mattress of his bed propped up against the wall. Three guards were packed into his room, two rifling through his belongings while the fourth stood in the middle of the room, apparently directing the search._

_One guard was going through the wardrobe, tossing Ashe’s clothes onto the floor as he searched, until he was standing in a small pile of clothing, and uncaring of the fact that he was smearing mud on them with his boots. Ingrid’s ears burned with suppressed anger, but Ashe didn’t seem to feel any anger, or if he did, it was a distant concern. He was breathing hard through his nose, nostrils flared, throat tight._

_“How long have they been here?” Ingrid asked quietly, hoping not to draw the attention of the guards._

_“A… a few minutes.” Ashe swallowed hard. “They usually turn up around this time.”_

_Ingrid had never been present before when the guards were searching Ashe’s room, and though she was not sure she wanted to hear the answer, the question was on her lips: “How long do they usually stay here?”_

_“Erm…” Ashe’s thin shoulders were trembling too much for a proper shrug. “…About… I think… About fifteen minutes?”_

_Fifteen minutes. By the Goddess, Ingrid could not think of a longer fifteen minutes._

_The search wore on. More spectators were arriving, though they kept their distance; Linhardt, Leonie, and Petra clustered in a group some fifteen feet away, listening to the noise, similar expressions of worry creeping over their faces. Ingrid hoped more people didn’t turn up, and could only be glad these spectators weren’t attempting to engage with the spectacle; this must be difficult enough for Ashe already, without the added humiliation of the entire student body of the Officers Academy watching a trio of guards tear his room apart._

_The second guard moved to Ashe’s bookshelf. He scanned the covers of the first book he pulled out before unceremoniously tossing it to the ground behind him._

_This, it seemed, was a step too far for Ashe’s liking. “Excuse me?” he asked timidly. “Please don’t throw my books on the ground; some of them are—“_

_“Be quiet!” the supervising guard snapped._

_Ashe practically wilted under the heat in the guard’s voice, and went back to watching them at their work, silent and fretting._

_More books were tossed onto the ground, and all of Ashe’s school assignments stacked up beside them. The supervising guard eyed the lot and nodded to the guard who had put them there. “Take them back to the guard house so that they may be examined more closely.”_

_Ashe found his voice again, a little stronger than last time. “Excuse me? You have my textbooks and my assignments in there—“ the supervising guard rounded on him, eyes blazing, but Ashe continued, undaunted “—I need them for class.”_

_If looks could kill, then Ingrid would very much wish for a weapon in her hand right now, to keep the supervising guard from killing Ashe with the force of his glare alone. As it stood, she could only tense as the guard stalked over to where Ashe stood, visibly fuming all the while._

_“Now listen here, boy,” the guard hissed. “I’ll hear no insolence from you. By all rights, you should have been taken away to the cells the moment your thrice-damned father dared to threaten the Archbishop. How_ dare _you complain of the mercy you’ve been given?!” When Ashe tried to shrink away from him, the guard seized Ashe’s arm, fingers closing around his upper arm in a grip that, even without experiencing it for herself, Ingrid could see was cruelly tight; it took only a moment for all color to disappear from the man’s knuckles. “Answer me, you treacherous brat!”_

_Ingrid tensed further, straining for a way to resolve the situation without causing it to escalate any further. She looked past clearly-terrified Ashe and the just as clearly enraged guard and saw that, if she was to try and resolve the situation, she would at least not be doing it alone._

_Linhardt had a fist pressed to his mouth, his eyes shining bright with something Ingrid did not recognize, but was far more intense than anything Ingrid had seen from him thus far. Leonie had taken a step forward, and was clearly intent on taking as many steps more as need be to reach them here. Petra’s hand was on the hilt of her wooden sword._

_But none of them would need to intervene. There were, as it turned out, certain advantages to having one of the professor’s quarters so close nearby._

_No one spotted Professor Melusine approach. No one_ heard _Professor Melusine approach. No one was aware of Professor Melusine’s approach until her hand clamped down tight on the guard’s shoulder, and she was staring at him tight-lipped, and eyes bright as a flash of sun on the blade of a sword. “Unhand this student,” she said, quietly, so quietly, but with a thrumming edge as present and as palpable as if she really had carried her sword to this engagement._

_Not that any of that seemed to register with the guard. “He needs to learn respect!”_

_Professor Melusine regarded the guard rather the way a wyvern regarded a goat._ That _, the guard took notice of, and though he did not release Ashe’s arm, he quailed a little, and quickly looked away from the terrible sharpness of her gaze. “You,” she murmured, and yet somehow her voice was so clear that Ingrid thought people on the other side of the monastery would have been able to make her out, “have searched Ashe’s room three times. You have found nothing. Unhand him,_ now _.”_

_Mumbling something that could not be made out, though the scarlet hue of his face rather spoke for him, the guard slowly relinquished his grip on Ashe’s arm, and turned back to the other two guards, who had been watching the proceedings uncertainly._

_While Professor Melusine spoke softly to Ashe, who was still white-faced, still trembling, but was so palpably relieved he looked like he might hug her, the supervising guard nodded to one of his fellows and said, “You. Get a crowbar. We need to look under these floorboards.”_

_Ingrid would never believe he wasn’t trying simply to wrest away the upper hand, but in the end, though Professor Melusine promised, with that wyvern-stare very much intact, that she would make certain the floorboards were replaced, there was nothing to be done to keep them from being ripped up in the first place._

But for all that the questioners of the Central Church expected to glean information of value from Ashe’s lips, Ashe had one narrative, and one only, and he kept to it, no matter what anyone else insisted, or insinuated, or threatened: Lord Lonato was a good man, a good father, and Ashe had no idea why he would stain himself with rebellion and heresy. This rebellion had been completely unknown to him until the news reached Garreg Mach, and Lord Lonato had breathed not one word of it to him. It was a complete shock, Lord Lonato had never intimated any desire to strike against the heart of the faithful, and Ashe had no idea why any of this was happening.

The guards did not seem convinced of that. Word was, the cardinals and Lady Rhea weren’t convinced of it, either. But when Ingrid listened to his pleas, all she could hear in them was truth, as resounding as the bell that tolled the hours.

Wisdom was keeping her peace while she was out in the open, and not speaking anything that could either cause strife in the classroom, or attract the disapproval of church officials. It was easy enough for Ingrid to devote her attention to her studies, or to her training, or to her meals, but once she was back in the quiet dark of her room when the moon shone, it wasn’t so easy to banish the thoughts that kept bobbing back up.

 _Never_ should the faithful raise their hand against the Church. The conflict between the Central Church and the Western Church was over Ingrid’s head, and very little information on what that conflict even _was_ was available to her, but she knew the reverence temporal lords ought to show the Church, and the speaker of the Goddess’s will. To raise a hand against the Church was to forsake every vow of chivalry a knight swore, was to spit in the face of the Goddess herself. When you set yourself against the Church, you made yourself a new Nemesis; the malign spirit of Nemesis lived on in all rebels and heretics, striving to push humanity back to the abyss of abject wickedness that had caused the Goddess to shun humanity in the first place.

Such were the words of Saint Seiros, in the earliest days of peace after Nemesis was vanquished. Such was what Ingrid had been taught from earliest childhood. Such was what Lord Lonato would have been taught.

The spirit of Nemesis lived on in the wickedness of heresy and rebellion. Unless the rebel or the heretic sincerely repented of their sins, submitted to the Archbishop’s judgment, underwent penance, and took up arms against the Goddess no more, the Goddess would never receive their souls after death. The rebel was damned. The heretic was damned. Their souls would join Nemesis in torment in the darkness between the stars.

The faithful should not concern themselves with the wicked who had chosen damnation for themselves. The sacred duty of the faithful was to punish the wicked, and speed their journey towards the void of torment. Ingrid had never questioned that. She had never paused to question the motives of those who raised their hands against the Church; they had let wickedness in, let the spirit of Nemesis in, that was all, and the world would be put back to rights once it was cleansed of them.

_Was the world put back to rights when we exacted penance with the blood of Duscur? Did the king return? Did Glenn? Does salting the earth and soaking it with blood let the dead rest in peace? Or does it breed more ghosts?_

For the first time in all the many times that Ingrid had pondered that, she realized that she had never definitively answered ‘yes’ or no to the questions it presented. The more she thought about that, the more her skin began to crawl, until finally, at the point where her skin felt like it might jump clean off of her flesh, she managed to stop thinking about it at all.

Now, lying on her bed, fully clothed and with the sheets still neatly made, the daily candle burning low and fractured gleams of colored moonlight lying on top of her feet, Ingrid wondered about other things she’d never given much thought to before. What it was that spurred Lord Lonato on down his destructive road not least among them.

If what they said about Christophe Gaspard was true, a father’s maddening grief could account for much that made no sense to her. To raise a hand against the Church was still blasphemy, and breathtakingly foolish, besides, as the army of the Central Church was the most highly skilled and well-trained in all o Fódlan, but revenge for a dead child was a motive Ingrid could at least _comprehend_. If Christophe had raised _his_ hand against the Church, or his king, then his death would have been only justice, but grief led the mind to strange places. Ingrid knew those places well.

( _And if it was one of your brothers? If it was Felix, or Sylvain? If someone looked you in the face and called it ‘justice,’ what would you do?_ )

So that would make him mad, rather than wicked, but—No, that wasn’t right. Saint Seiros had called all rebellion against the Goddess damnable wickedness, and equally wicked regardless of the cause. There could be no excuse, no mitigating factor that would have seen the betrayal shrugged off.

All rebels and heretics were traitors to the Goddess and the Church of Seiros, and unless they abased themselves at the feet of the Archbishop, they could not be forgiven. Those who sought to strike out against the Archbishop herself were not afforded even that small hope of salvation; death, and torment after death, was the only penance for the sins that blackened their souls.

Ingrid rolled over on her bed, away from the window and towards the guttering candle. She could easily imagine that the staccato flicker of the golden flame was tied directly to her own heartbeat, for it flared and dimmed in time with it.

So: if Church doctrine was so clear on this point, then why was it, whenever Ingrid tried to tell herself that Lord Lonato was a rebel and a heretic and the execution he would receive was no better than he deserved, that all she could see in her mind’s eye was Ashe’s wan, anxious face?

-

In a climate such as this, Ingrid had neither expected nor particularly wanted to receive a letter from her father. And yet, regardless of her expectations or her wishes, when mail call was sounded in the dining hall that morning, there had been a letter for Ingrid, the handwriting on the parcel unmistakable for anyone but her father’s.

The parcel had clearly been opened and examined before being given to her, for Ingrid had never known anything she received from home to be packaged so inexpertly as what had been handed off to her just now. It was not worth her annoyance, let alone her anger, so Ingrid would let neither rule her. The Church would do as it would when it came to flushing out and preventing espionage.

The contents were… predictable. If her father had heard about what was going on in Gaspard territory, he apparently did not deem it a pressing enough concern to mention in his correspondence with her. Instead, he wrote as if the most important thing to worry about in all the world at this moment was whether Ingrid had come to any sort of understanding with any of her classmates.

Ingrid could almost laugh, it was so ridiculous, though her laughter would likely have been bitter enough to curdle milk. Why was he preoccupied with that, right _now_? Didn’t he know that there was a rebellion in Gaspard territory? Didn’t he know that no one knew precisely _why_ Lord Lonato had turned rebel? Didn’t he know that there was a boy in Garreg Mach whose life was falling apart before his very eyes?

Ah, but this was useless. Ingrid put the letter aside. She had to help Ashe put his room back together again.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : Blood, gore, death, injuries]

If anyone had expected things to quiet down after Lord Lonato was slain in battle and the Western Church was driven from its ancestral strongholds, that someone was sorely mistaken.

Regent Rufus had seized control of Gaspard territory in the name of the crown the moment the dust settled. Lord Lonato had had no widely acknowledged legal heirs—from that, were Ingrid a little more naïve, she might have thought that Ashe and his natal siblings had never been formally adopted, but there had been other incidents in history of nobles adopting commoners as their heirs, and no incidents that she was aware of of those heirs actually managing to hold onto their inheritance after their adoptive parents’ deaths. It seemed more likely that the crown would retain control of Gaspard territory until it would be advantageous to gift it as a sign of favor. How many wealthy commoners who had rendered services to the crown had attained nobility in such a fashion? It was more common in the Alliance or especially the Empire, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of in the Kingdom, especially when it came to especially valiant warriors; there was a story of a warrior who long ago saved the life of the king, and received a noble title through that act. But it did not seem to Ingrid that either Ashe or his siblings would make out well from this turn of events. None of the great men who dealt in provinces cared much what became of an orphaned commoner boy and his orphaned commoner siblings.

_Ashe wants to be a knight. Maybe Father could find space in our household…_

But their household was overtaxed, just as it was. Father would not readily take on an inexperienced charity case. And Ashe’s siblings, as well; her father wouldn’t have taken them on as servants, let alone as the orphaned wards of a dead rebel.

_No one will want to be associated with a dead rebel’s children, especially when they have no Crests, no noble pedigree, and the chances of their ever inheriting their father’s territory is one in a thousand._

Increasingly, Ingrid wondered just what it was that Ashe was going to do when he left Garreg Mach. He hadn’t spoken about it with anyone. Knighthood seemed unlikely, now; even beyond her father, Ingrid could think of few who would have taken him on. With what they were all learning here, Ingrid supposed he could have found work as a mercenary, but for someone who wanted to become a knight almost as badly as Ingrid herself, that was not what Ingrid would have called a happy ending. Not something fit for a tale.

Wherever Ashe ended up after the school year was spent, it certainly wasn’t going to be Garreg Mach. He had not been hauled off to a cell, as had been threatened. He had not been hauled off for questioning again, nor had the guards come back and taken his room apart looking for any sign of seditious materials. But it became obvious very early on that he was still being watched. In the dining hall, at least one of the posted guards kept their eyes locked on him at all times. One of the priests watched him openly whenever he was in the cathedral. There were always a couple of extra guards in the training grounds when Ashe was there, even when it was for a class session. Felix had had to point it out to Ingrid, but once he had, she saw it all the time, unaided.

No, Ashe would certainly not be staying in Garreg Mach once the school year was over. She would be surprised if they waited through the end of the graduation ceremony to escort him through the gates and invite him _never_ to return.

That, Ingrid surmised, might have something to do with the fact that the Western Church had not quietly receded into the shadows after being ejected from their strongholds. No, they were not behaving at all like you would expect from a vanquished foe.

For instance, you would not expect a vanquished foe to plan a strike at the very heart of their enemy so soon after their defeat, without any apparent time to consolidate their forces and look for allies. And yet, word was that the Western Church was planning a strike against Garreg Mach, possibly against the Archbishop herself, on the day of the Goddess’s Rite of Rebirth. Not really what you would expect, was it? Not during a time when all of the Holy Knights would be here at the monastery, surely?

The Western Church must be very wicked, or else desperate beyond the understanding of men. Increasingly, Ingrid thought the latter might be closer to the truth, though why they should be so desperate, desperate enough to be driven to these lengths, Ingrid could not guess. She feared her ignorance more than she feared the attack. At least once the attack was on her, she would be able to fight back. Her ignorance might spiral on and on with no remedy, and lead her to a pitfall with spikes at the bottom.

But though the attack had not been positively confirmed, the fact remained that Garreg Mach was on high alert. The guard shifts had been doubled, the mercenaries that had come to Garreg Mach with Captain Jeralt hired on to act as extra muscle for the foreseeable future. Any of the Holy Knights who happened to be on assignment elsewhere, who had been due to return by the time of the Rite, had been recalled to the monastery early. Even the students had been enlisted to keep their eyes out for any sign of suspicious activities (Though Ashe and Dedue had been ‘invited’—in such a tone as clearly intimated that that ‘invitation’ would have become an order had they not assented—not to join in on the search). For all that the strength of the Western Church had been broken in Gaspard territory, it was clear that Lady Rhea and her councilors were taking the threat to Garreg Mach very seriously.

So being summoned from her bed and told to join the rest of her class at the outer gates with Catherine leading them out into the forest beyond was… unexpected, to say the least.

Ingrid wasn’t sure she could say that she was complaining. When news came down of what was happening in Gaspard territory, whatever mission might have been planned for the Blue Lions that month had been cancelled. It felt like an eternity since Ingrid had been allowed to go out into the countryside, that eternity making her more nostalgic for the pine barrens and the moors of her home territory than she had ever known she could be.

Obviously, the verdant forests of this part of the Oghma Mountains were objectively superior to the austere landscape of Galatea territory. Obviously. Ingrid was surrounded by life: tall and ancient trees rich in leaf and strong in root, sprawling bushes, sweetly fragrant flowers, tender grass that quivered in every breath of wind. The rock and turf, the yew tree and pine tree and heather and gorse of home could not compare. But she found herself longing for the views of that territory as seen from Kyphon’s back, fifty feet in the air or higher. She longed for air as breathed from without high walls, rather from within.

So, all told, Ingrid was not sure whether she should complain. They were _supposed_ to be guarding the monastery, yes, but if they hadn’t been called out here, it could easily have been another month before Ingrid was allowed out into the wilds. Two, really, considering next month’s mission would be at the _end_ of the month like the others had been.

“Don’t worry about it,” Catherine assured them all, in response to an uneasy question from Annette. Ingrid wasn’t the only one of them worried about the potential repercussions for the monastery. “This is a training exercise, and it’s just for the morning; once we get back to the monastery, Shamir will take the Golden Deer out here.” She smiled lopsidedly, a thin strip of teeth gleaming in the morning sunlight. “We’re trying to make up for you all being cooped up in the monastery last month while…” She trailed off, the smile fading from her face. When she spoke again, it was to say, in considerably more subdued tones: “Come on, the site’s still about a mile away.”

That one remembrance was enough to bring back a bit of a pall to the class (Ingrid debated with herself about whether she should attend to Ashe, before deciding that it would best be left for a more private setting), but Ingrid would _try_ not to let it wash the color from her surroundings. She could at least mark this as the first occasion since she had entered Garreg Mach that she had been allowed to carry a real, battle-ready lance. That was progress, surely.

Whenever Ingrid held a battle-ready lance, her mind went, if only for a moment, to Lúin. It was said that when one who bore a Crest wielded the family’s Relic, they could feel its power coursing through them, responding to the Crest, as if the Relic was an extension of their own body. The way Ingrid had heard it described made the experience sound almost transcendental, like a religious experience.

Ingrid had never been allowed to hold Lúin. When she’d asked after that to her father as a child, he had smiled, patted her head, and told her not to try and cast the future in stone, something that had made little sense to her at the time, but she thought she understood now. Ingrid had never held her family’s Relic, and thus, she had no idea what the power of it might feel like in her hand. She couldn’t imagine it was anything like what she felt with the iron-tipped lance she’d been given to use this morning strapped to her back. She didn’t feel power emanating from her lance, not exactly, but carrying it made her feel stronger, imbued her with a confidence she hadn’t felt in days. As she grew more experienced with a battle-ready lance or sword, she hoped that confidence could grow. It was a poor knight who didn’t know their way around weapons that could actually be of use in battle.

A poor knight…

Ingrid had gotten a new letter from her father yesterday morning, the gist of which was that he had opened negotiations with Viscount Kleiman regarding his second son. A second son, eh—either the viscount offered a handsome bride price (something still difficult for Ingrid to think about), or Father had reached a new stage of desperation and Ingrid had been unable to grasp it previously, thanks to all the miles that laid between them. For this morning, at least, Ingrid would try not to think about it overmuch. It would have only distracted her.

(It was her duty. She had not forgotten. Only she could do this for her family, for none of her brothers, not even the eldest and potential rival-heir, Séverin, made for attractive marriage partners. She had not forgotten that, either. If she was called upon to fulfill her duty, if her future husband was a man who thought this wife’s place was at his hearth and in his bed and not on the battlefield, what—

No, it had not yet come to pass. She would not let it consume her.)

Ingrid had not let loose any sighs at the thoughts that crept into her mind, but she was hearing sighs, nonetheless. When Ingrid looked behind her, she saw Mercedes reading a letter held in both of her hands, Annette peering anxiously over her shoulder. Mercedes’s brow was deeply furrowed, eyes cast over the parchment, and lips pressed in such a thin line as to nearly render them invisible. Given the speed with which she shuffled the parchment up, Ingrid got the strong impression that this was not her first time reading it.

Trouble rarely marred the smooth planes of Mercedes’s features. Even while she was trying to establish contact with her mother during Lord Lonato’s rebellion, she had seemed concerned, yes, but either the situation had not yet in her eyes escalated to a need for panic, or she had kept a tighter hold on her emotions than what would let fly trouble onto her skin. For it to show through now, and so clearly that even one who had never seen the emotion on her face could recognize it at once, whatever was written on that sheet of parchment must be dire.

Different scenarios whirled through Ingrid’s mind as she fell to the back of the line with Mercedes and Annette. Was it a letter from Mercedes’s mother? Had she been hurt during the fighting last month? Or was it a letter from the priest of the church where Lady Martritz lived, informing her daughter of injuries or death? Was it a letter relating some other family illness, or a misfortune that had befallen old friends, a rejection letter from a trade guild or an abbey?

Useless, this was. Ingrid could fret all she liked, and she would never know what it was that was written there until she went to Mercedes and asked her.

“Mercedes?” Ingrid murmured. The wind gave enough of a cry that she did not have to lower her voice _too_ much to avoid being heard, but of a lady’s virtues, Ingrid at least had discretion to her name. “What troubles you?”

Sometimes, Ingrid wondered just what life had been like for Mercedes in her original, noble household, for how quickly she could hide any emotion behind a gentle smile was, Ingrid thought, just a bit telling. Oh, certainly, she had been taught the importance of composure, as well, but no one had ever tried to tell Ingrid that every face she showed to the world must be a smiling one… just like no one had tried to tell her that she had to make her voice sound as high and girlish as possible, for Ingrid _knew_ Mercedes’s voice was naturally at least a little deeper than she tried to claim. Ingrid had _heard_ it as it naturally was, and yet that almost-falsetto pitch was what she used habitually instead. (Ingrid wondered, sometimes, just how long Mercedes could talk like that before her throat began to hurt. Maybe one day she would find out. She just hoped that whatever damage done wasn’t permanent.)

“Oh, Ingrid.” And no hint of trouble in her voice, either, though Annette looked troubled enough for the both of them. “Nothing’s particularly the matter, it’s just…” Her smile faltered, as might the sun when a shadow of evening flew too-early across it. “There’s just something that’s been bothering me for a while, and this letter reminded me about it.”

“What might that be?” If Mercedes was willing to admit that something bothered her, without that something being well-nigh apocalyptic, Ingrid was willing to listen. Mercedes always lent an ear to others’ troubles; this sort of repayment was the least of what she must by now be owed.

“Don’t try to say it’s nothing!” Annette piped up, her face screwed up in an intense frown.

Mercedes’s smile shifted shape, slightly—no longer faltering serenity, but the gentle cool of reassurance. “I won’t, Annie; don’t worry.” Her attention was back on Ingrid, now. “If you’re willing to listen, I’d be happy to tell you.” Her smile brightened a little. “Only Annie really knows about this, and I think she’s tired of listening to be me gripe.”

As if the concept was completely foreign to her, Annette’s face screwed up even further, a mask of indignation. “That’s not griping,” she insisted. “It’s only griping if it’s not a big deal.”

“Let’s let Ingrid decide if she thinks it’s griping, okay?” Mercedes told her gently. Once again directed towards Ingrid, she murmured, “Hmm, how should I put this?” Mercedes tapped a finger against her lips, eyes slightly narrowed. “I suppose it’s probably best to just tell you the truth. My adoptive father is a very greedy man,” she explained, in such a conversational tone of voice as would likely have been more appropriate to commenting on the weather.

Herself, Ingrid’s eyebrows shot up—she had never heard Mercedes say more than five words about her adoptive father, and _this_ was what she opened with?—but Annette was nodding along grimly; this clearly wasn’t news to her.

Either ignorant of or unaffected by Ingrid’s surprise, Mercedes went on, “When he adopted me about two and a half years ago, it was obvious to me that he wanted to profit from marrying me off. He—“

But Mercedes was unable to finish her sentence. The words on her lips died as Catherine abruptly signaled for them all to be silent, her clear blue eyes suddenly gleaming like the blade of a freshly polished dagger.

All was still and silent for a moment, as Ingrid and her classmates stared uncertainly Catherine’s way. Slowly, she raised one hand, motioning for them to join her where she stood. “Keep quiet,” she hissed, “and look down the slope.”

This being the mountains, the path leaving Garreg Mach wound its serpentine way through hills and valleys, across ravines and gorges, and up and down the mountains themselves. From their first day, the students had been admonished to stay on the paths when they were outside of the monastery, to stay in the designated training areas, and _not_ wander out of sight of their minders. It would be entirely too easy for even the wary to set foot on an unsteady patch of ground and go plummeting to their deaths. It would be easy even for those with some woodcraft to get lost, and while—at this time of year, at least—they would likely not have been at a loss for things to eat, being out in the open left them entirely too vulnerable to the elements, to any wolves (not the monstrous kind, thankfully, though the mundane were bad enough) or mountain lions or whatever else lurked in the fathomless nights of the wilderness. You could have a weapon with you, and that wouldn’t help you if you were set upon while sleeping.

That said, it wasn’t as if the wilderness around Garreg Mach was empty of people. There were villages scattered all around, and, as Ingrid saw now, an encampment was apparently not an impossible sight.

It was far below, maybe some fifty feet, and so far past a thicket of bushes and grasping yew and bristling holly trees that Ingrid probably wouldn’t have spotted it at all if the embers of a campfire hadn’t centered her attention upon the campsite. But there it was, and Ingrid could make out a lean-to shelter past it, and a pile of what looked like a combination of weapons and blankets, or maybe cloaks, off to the side. Shadows moved through the thick screen of branches and leaves, too obscured for Ingrid to distinguish each from the other, but she thought… She thought, watching them, that there might have been three people down there, or four.

“The merchants coming to Garreg Mach have been having troubles with bandits, lately,” Catherine explained, voice pitching lower and quieter than Ingrid thought she had ever heard it. Though the volume of her voice was soft, like a whisper of wind through the trees, there was nothing soft about the tone. That much was hard as steel. “I’d say we just found their camp.”

Though it was objectively a good thing that they’d found what appeared to be the bandits’ temporary encampment, Ingrid could not keep disappointment from settling into her stomach like she had swallowed an apothecary’s pound weight. There went any hope of training outside, today. There went any hope of actually being able to use the iron-tipped lance she’d finally been allowed to carry with her. It seemed like, until next month’s mission, the only time Ingrid would be spending outside the soaring, forbidding walls of Garreg Mach would be the walk to this point, and the walk back to the monastery now that Catherine had spotted a real danger to the students’ well-being. They’d go back in, call out the knights, and that would be the end of that.

Or, so she thought.

“Okay,” Catherine whispered, her eyes suddenly flaring with hungry excitement. “New plan. It looks like there are only three of them down there—funny, I’d thought there’d be more of them, just based on the reports we were getting. There’s only three; we’ve got them outnumbered. We’re gonna go down there and deal with them.”

There could be no question of just what Catherine meant by ‘deal with them;’ the hungry excitement in her blue eyes had flared to a blaze, and her hand stroked Thunderbrand’s hilt like someone would pet a cat. It had been what felt like a lifetime since Ingrid had known her as Cassandra, and Ingrid could never remember seeing anything like this in her, then. But she had been a little child, back then, and the Cassandra who was would not have shown such a face to a little child who looked at her with stars in her eyes.

(Or maybe it was newer. Maybe it had been forged during the time she was lost in the mists of southern Faerghus, a nameless wraith committing unspeakable acts. Or maybe the bloodlust was newer than that.)

Dimitri nodded resolutely, hands tightening on the shaft of his own steel-tipped lance. But standing at his shoulder, Sylvain did not seem to share his sense of purpose. Sylvain asked in a whisper, “Shouldn’t we go get backup first? There’s probably more than just three of them.”

“No time.” Catherine’s mouth curled in a thin, anticipatory smile. “And bandits aren’t exactly trained warriors. We can take them. I’ll go in first. All of you follow after me— _quietly_.”

So they made their slow, painstaking way down the embankment. The initial plan had been to go in a straight line, but that was soon discarded; the terrain was so uneven that every one of them would have had sprained ankles by the time they were at the bottom. Every time someone stepped on a twig, Ingrid tensed, expecting the men in the encampment to shoot up to their feet, brandishing weapons and racing up to meet them. They’d had few lessons on stealth, and while some of them, Felix and Ashe especially, took to what little they’d learned like a fish to water, to Ingrid, they all felt horribly exposed. She had longed for a chance to wet her lance and _finally_ have experience of battle, but this was rather too sudden for her liking. Sylvain was right; if they _were_ going to rout these bandits themselves, they needed more of the knights from the monastery to aid them. Most of them were too inexperienced of battle to just send into the field without warning.

_The Black Eagles were sent into their first battle much like this_ , a thin little voice whispered to Ingrid, as she picked her way gingerly across a patch of steep ground liberally spotted with what looked like rabbit holes. _The only difference is that they were warned, and the Knights of Seiros followed at a distance. The knights weren’t close enough to keep one of them from being killed by a surprise attack. There was only one truly experienced warrior with them when they stormed an entire camp of bandits. No one who had the power to change their mission or the nature of the knights’ role thought that strange. Why should you think_ this _strange_?

Really, there was no need to worry. There were, as Catherine had pointed out, only three of them, and they _did_ have Catherine with them, Thunderbrand strapped to her back. Ingrid gathered her resolve, and readied herself to take her lance from her back and sheathe it in living flesh. The duty of the faithful was to punish the wicked. The wicked must be punished for their sins. (And that no one had presented a satisfying motive for Lord Lonato’s rebellion would, for now, be put from her mind. It would come back later. There was nothing that could prevent its return. For the next few hours, she could at least _try_ to forget it, try to make this world consistent with itself.)

As they drew closer and closer to the encampment, there was no noise from the bandits, no horn-blast or cry of alarm. This was utterly unlike what Ingrid had read of the first battles experienced by most of the knights in her favorite tales. While there had been a few instances of a young knight or even squire getting their first taste of battle via forest ambush, most of it was pitched battles and sieges, not _this_. Ingrid was grateful to finally get some experience, but all of this was distinctly inglorious. Duty demanded it, and she would not shirk, but she would have liked altered circumstances, if she had had a choice.

Ingrid had never killed anyone before. She still had no idea how she would react to it.

When they drew level with the encampment, Catherine motioned for them all to stop. Hand on the hilt of her holy sword, she stepped out from the shelter of bushes and trees, gait confident and head held high. If none of the rest of the lead-up to the battle had been as Ingrid would have expected of her first battle, at least there was this: their commander strode out to the battlefield with all the fearlessness of a true knight.

There was noise, then. Catherine was out in the open, then Dimitri, with Dedue barely half a step behind him and Felix drawing his sword as he skirted the edge of the undergrowth. One of the men they had come upon sounded an alarm, his voice harsh and strange in the balmy summer air, and though Ingrid was still not close enough to see it, she could hear weapons being drawn and the thunder of footsteps against hard earth.

And more footsteps.

And more.

And more.

Later, Ingrid would be unable to tell you just how many bandits there had been. As Catherine had said, it seemed unlikely that _three_ would be able to cause the amount of trouble the merchants trying to get to and from Garreg Mach had been having, and as Sylvain had tried to warn them, there were probably more lying in wait, in the event of an ambush. There were more than three. She knew that much. There were a lot more than three.

The rest was lost in a cacophony of iron and steel and shouts and the reek of blood and the bright, keening song of magic. Ingrid did not easily find foes; Ingrid did not easily find a place to _stand_ that was not already occupied by a warm body.

She saw an axe swing towards her and, remembering her lessons, jumped out of the way sooner than risk having the shaft of her lance hewn in two in her hands. _That_ would have been a great way to end up with an axe buried in her belly, and she didn’t really think Mercedes’s healing training had progressed far enough to teach her how to deal with that. Ingrid couldn’t think of a single knight worth their spurs who had died in their first actual battle.

There was little opportunity to strike out against foes; instead, Ingrid found herself doing more dodging of unwanted axe strikes and blocking against other lances and rusting swords and, oh, that wasn’t even a weapon, it was a stick with rope wrapped around it. There seemed to be no end to it, none at all, just a confused mass of sweat and blood and tense, solid bodies and metal gleaming in dappled sunlight.

In such circumstances, Ingrid found she did not feel particularly courageous. Her blood did not sing in her veins, nor did her mind reach the sort of preternatural calm that was described of many experienced knights. Her mind ran dry with confusion and the worry that she could become so disoriented that she might strike an ally by mistake, or be taken unawares by one of the bandits and struck down where she stood. Where in the training grounds the combined odor of sweat and leather had not given her any trouble, here, it swam in Ingrid’s nostrils, making her head spin. Fresh air had she, and yet everything seemed so much closer than it did in the confined space where she trained.

Was this how Glenn had felt, in his first battle? It seemed beyond imagining that he could have faced battle with anything but cool confidence and the determination to do his duty, but he had been younger than Ingrid was now when he was knighted ( _he had been the same age that she was now when he died_ ) and he would not have had the years of experience that older knights can boast of. Was it as overwhelming to him as it threatened to be for her? Or had Glenn always been as he was by the time he died, confident and easygoing, the sort of man who insisted the only use of a helmet was to make it easier for someone to find his head if it was hewn from his shoulders?

Could she ever hope to live up to his example?

Suddenly, there was a break in the writhing mass of bodies and the cacophony of human shouts and steely clashes, and there was one man with a notched iron sword charging her down. His eyes were…

Ingrid didn’t calculate the best place to thrust her lance forward. She didn’t think of the technique Gilbert had shown them about how to knock a sword out of an enemy’s hand. She didn’t think about anything but _forwards_ and _victory_ and _survival_ and _those eyes_ , and then her lance was buried in the man’s belly so deep that blood flowed down in gory rivulets onto her hands.

The chaos of battle died away; the only noise that came to Ingrid’s ears was the harsh breaths, choked with bubbling blood, of the man speared on her lance, quieter and more labored with each passing iteration. He slumped, dragging Ingrid’s lance down with him—and Ingrid, hands locked on the shaft now slick with blood, hands locked on that shaft as if they had been turned to stone, pitched forward with him as he fell, only barely managing to keep her footing.

Ingrid’s eyes were locked on the man’s face as he drew breath after harsh, ragged breath, pinkish blood dribbling from his lips. He stared back up at her, and the way his lips were moving, she thought he might be trying to say something. Nothing came to her that was audible. Nothing came to her that made any sense at all.

He had such a thin, bony face. Wicked men could look just the same as the good; Ingrid was not so much a child as to believe that wicked people would appear evil at first glance. Wicked people did not appear on the battlefield in armor painted entirely black; indeed, sable was a common color in noble heraldry in certain parts of the Kingdom. She’d not expected the bandits to have anything about their appearance that would mark them out as obviously evil. But for whatever reason, Ingrid had not expected this, either. This man looked to be of an age with Séverin, and the prominence of bones in his face was not so far apart from the pinch of hunger that so often marred her oldest brother’s face. It was… familiar. Jarringly so.

She did not know precisely at what moment the man died. There was no change in the quality of his eyes, which remained open the whole time. There was no moment when ‘the life left his eyes’; his eyes looked just the same as before. It was just that there was an instance when Ingrid knew he was breathing, and then, without her noticing, he just stopped. No drama. Nothing of note to mark the moment of his passing.

(Ingrid wondered for the first time what they’d be doing with the bodies once the battle was won.)

Then, something hard impacted against her left side, staggering her. Pain bloomed in her ribs, radiating out so that her heart hurt as it feverishly pumped blood through her veins, and her stomach lurched unpleasantly. The sound came rushing back, the spell was broken, and Ingrid wrenched her lance from the corpse it was buried in and returned to the fight.

-

In the end, it did not matter that Catherine had deemed the situation too urgent to call in the knights; the knights got involved, anyways. Mind, they didn’t show up soon enough to actually give aid in the battle itself, but as it turned out, Catherine felt they should just leave the bodies where they laid and send someone else out to deal with them, and the knights were helpful for that. There had been a complement of six sent out when the Blue Lions didn’t arrive back at the monastery on schedule. Four of them remained with the students and their minder as they trudged back to the monastery. The other two started getting the corpses back in order (apparently, standing policy was _not_ to just leave corpses where they laid; something about it frightening off traveling merchants) while waiting for reinforcements.

Ingrid had wondered briefly if there might not be more bandits in the forest somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to strike, and if leaving just two guards behind might not be a recipe for two more corpses in the deadfall and thick undergrowth. But she quickly discarded the notion. They’d made such a racket during the battle that everything within five miles must have heard them. If there were any more bandits out in the wilderness, they would have come running at the sound of metal clashing and men screaming. There seemed little cause for concern.

Progress back to the monastery was slow. Ingrid’s side throbbed as if she had grown a second heart just beneath the site where she had been struck by… whatever it was that had struck her (Just judging by the pounding ache, perhaps a boulder). There was no blood on her clothes, nor even a tear in them, but each breath put a barb of agony into her lungs, and twisting her body at the waist made her feel light-headed, as if she might faint.

She hadn’t bothered Mercedes. Sylvain had received a slash to his right thigh that gushed blood, and Ashe had wound up with a broken wrist. As far as Ingrid was concerned, Mercedes had more than enough to be deal with without pestering her over something that was more likely than not just an oversized bruise. She would be alright until she could get back to the monastery and seek out attention in the infirmary.

With each step Ingrid took, the pain grew more intense. Sweat rolled down her face in beads, the light that lanced through the gaps in the leaves piercing her eyes like phantom spears. It was a good thing that today was a rest day; Ingrid would certainly be glad to crawl into her bed once she’d been patched up. For all that she had suspected she would be miserably hungry by this time of day, that had not come to pass; the thought of eating, now, made her stomach churn with what could only be the threat of nausea. Maybe by suppertime, her stomach would have settled enough for her to safely eat.

_Those eyes_ flashed through her mind again. Then again, maybe Ingrid wouldn’t rediscover her appetite come the evening.

_So, that was battle…_ It… had not been what she had thought it would be. Ingrid couldn’t even articulate how; she just knew it to be not what her expectations had sang to her of. Or maybe there was something she could positively identify: it had all been less glorious than the tales had made out.

She had done her duty. She had wet her lance with blood, and managed not to empty the contents of her stomach to mingle with the blood. She’d done her duty, and kept her composure in the process. That was more than could be said for many young knights living through their first kill. She had acquitted herself well; Ingrid would have thought she would be happy. And she was not _un_ happy, not exactly, just…

_How many months of lean times did he endure, for his skin to stretch so tightly across his bones?_ Here _, in the most fertile lands of the Oghma Mountains, someone could look like that. Why?_

Ingrid was not sure what was the matter with her.

All would be well, once she got back to the monastery.

“Ingrid?”

So intent was Ingrid on just keeping moving forward, on ignoring the pain that had become nearly the whole of her chest, and not distracting her classmates or the knights who acted as their guards, that she did not at first hear Mercedes speaking to her. The last Ingrid had known, Mercedes was keeping close to Sylvain, in the event of his leg wound reopening and leaving him even fainter than it already had. She had not expected Mercedes to approach _her_.

“Ingrid?”

The next time registered faintly in her mind, but it wasn’t until Ingrid felt a hand jostling her shoulder that she looked over, and saw Mercedes standing next to her, her face marred by a gray shadow of worry. Ingrid straightened, and a fresh spike of pain jolted through her. She tried to keep it out of her face, and initially, though she’d succeeded—until she saw the worry on Mercedes’s face darken from shadow to raincloud. Given that, Ingrid didn’t bother trying to smile; she was afraid any such expression would have come off more as a grimace of pain. “Yes, Mercedes?”

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?” Though Mercedes’s voice was just as soft as Ingrid had ever heard it, though it still pitched upwards towards that unnatural falsetto, there was an undertone there that gave the strong impression that lying outright would have been _ill-advised_. “You’re favoring your right side.”

Funny, Ingrid thought she had managed to keep from favoring either side too obviously. It seemed there was a lesson in composure she had yet to learn—one of many, she had no doubt. “It’s not that bad,” she tried to assure her, and when Mercedes looked unconvinced, Ingrid went on, “I should be fine until we reach the monastery.”

She couldn’t have occupied Mercedes’s attention unduly when Ashe needed someone to heal the worst of the damage to his hand and wrist. She couldn’t have distracted Mercedes when Sylvain was bleeding so much that he could have died, had his wound gone untreated. And when there was no other healer with them, and they both still needed Mercedes’s care, Ingrid had no desire to distract Mercedes away from them, now.

Mercedes seemed to be of another mind, though, for she drew close to Ingrid’s left side, holding up a hand in offer. “Will you let me examine your side? It could be more serious than you think.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t trouble you over—“

“Ingrid.” Mercedes fixed her in a long, firm stare. For the first time, Ingrid really thought about the fact that Mercedes had been a woman grown for several years, and that what she had undergone throughout her life, though she was always sparse on details, had clearly been less than pleasant. Ingrid had never before seen in her the sort of steel that suffering could create. She was seeing it now. “It’s no trouble for me to check your injuries now. It would be much more trouble for us to carry you back to the monastery if you fainted.” She sighed, and smiled faintly to herself. “You sound like… Oh, but I doubt you want to hear about that. Please, just let me help you.”

Mercedes was right. Ingrid would be a burden to the others if they had to carry her back to Garreg Mach. She sucked a deep breath, immediately regretted having breathed so deeply when the pain seared her lungs, and nodded. “Alright.”

At least they were able to keep walking while Mercedes examined her, and not slow down the class’s progress towards the monastery any further. Ingrid held her left arm away from her side while Mercedes poked and prodded. When her fingertips found an especially tender spot, Ingrid hissed involuntarily, and Mercedes pursed her lips. “Well, I think Professor Manuela would know better than I do, but I think you may have a broken rib. I can do some field healing here, and Professor Manuela can see to it once we get back.”

“Will it help with the pain?” was out of Ingrid’s mouth before she could really think over the implications.

And with anyone else, she would have been more concerned about what the implications, in their eyes, would have been. What would her father have made of how easily she let pain rule her? What would her mother have made of it, or her older brothers? What would any of the men her father had brought around the castle, the men who had said they would _never_ let their wife fight on the battlefield, have made of her weakness? But Mercedes… Somehow, Ingrid was more confident that Mercedes would take nothing away from this but the pain of a maybe-broken rib. She hoped that trust wasn’t misplaced.

Indeed, Mercedes smiled gently and nodded. “It should. There will still be some pain after I’ve treated it, but it will ease enough that you’ll have less trouble walking.”

Silvery light bloomed from Mercedes’s fingertips, washing over Ingrid’s side like cool water. Ingrid knew little of healing magic; she had no idea how exactly it was supposed to _work_. But the effect it had on her was plain enough; within moments, the pain in her side began to lessen. By the time Mercedes drew her hand away, there was still pain, as she had cautioned, but it was considerably less, and the pain of a deep breath had shrunk from agonizing spikes to dull twinges that could be quickly forgotten.

“Thank you,” Ingrid muttered fervently. “That is… That is much better.”

Another gentle smile. “Yes, I thought it would be.” Mercedes sobered, straightening. “Ingrid, I know you think you’re strong enough to endure pain without complaint, but I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness to ask a healer for her help. It’s much easier to help people when you aren’t in pain.”

“I… know.” Well, her mind knew it. Sometimes. (Maybe somewhat less than ‘sometimes.’) “I will seek you out if need be, in the future.”

That was easily enough promised: seeking the healer out in good time was another way of avoiding causing trouble for her team.

Whatever Mercedes thought of her reasoning for assent, she did not dispute it. She nodded in obvious satisfaction, and they walked on in silence.

But there was something else tugging at Ingrid’s mind, now, something that saw her breaking the silence almost as soon as it had fallen. “Mercedes… Just before Catherine alerted us to the bandits’ camp, you were talking about your adoptive father.” What had his name been? He was a wealthy merchant living in Fhirdiad, and Ingrid had heard of him before—just after he had adopted Mercedes, as it happened, since her father had put out feelers, only to draw back in disappointment when he discovered that the person that merchant adopted had been a woman, rather than an eligible young man. Ingrid knew little of him, beyond the fact that he was good at ingratiating himself with the royal court, and equally good at procuring whatever item his clients desired, no matter how rare or expensive. But she could not remember his name. Why was that? “I assume the letter you were reading was from him?”

“Oh, yes.” No hesitation to speak of it, this time. Perhaps battle had loosened her tongue, or perhaps it had simply been an irritating delay to this confidence. “I believe I said it before, but he is a very greedy man.” That same blithe tone; it jarred Ingrid, though she was not certain as to why. “He didn’t adopt me so that I could be the heir to his business; he just seeks to enrich himself further by marrying me off to a wealthy nobleman. He’s made a number of attempts since adopting me, but none of them have ever led to marriage.” The thin, secretive smile that crept over Mercedes’s lips at this made Ingrid wonder if there might not be a _reason_ none of those attempts had ever been successful. “But this time, I’m not certain that I can avoid it. According to his letter, the man he wants to marry seems agreeable to the idea without having first met me; his father, too.”

Not entirely unreasonable when it came to marriage alliances between noble houses, though from what little Ingrid had heard of commoners (and she’d been hearing more since coming here), it was generally considered better practice to _know_ your spouse before you married them. Given that they were likely going to be living in close proximity with each other, and that the poorer of them could not retreat to separate bedchambers if things went sour, Ingrid conceded there was a certain logic to that. And Mercedes, without an extant noble pedigree…

Ingrid frowned, her stomach beginning to churn again in a manner that had nothing to do with pain. She’d heard a few cautionary tales about that. Most of them were cautioning commoners against the hubris of grasping for more than the Goddess had given them, but Ingrid did not think that that was the only lesson that could be taken away from them.

“Who is the man your adoptive father seeks to wed you to?”

Mercedes shrugged, as if the identity was unimportant to her. “Viscount Kleiman’s third son.”

Ingrid… felt rather strange, all of a sudden.

“Now, that is a coincidence,” she said slowly.

“Oh, why is that?”

It was Ingrid’s turn to shrug, though she did so without the casualness with which Mercedes had imbued the gesture. “My younger brother, Henrik, serves as a page in the viscount’s household. Also, my father has opened negotiations with Viscount Kleiman to try to wed me to his second son.”

A startled laugh jarred from Mercedes’s mouth. “Is that so? My, we could be sisters if the negotiations are successful.”

Ingrid blinked. “I’ve… never had a sister.” Not one that lived, anyways.

“Nor have I,” Mercedes murmured, her voice nearly inaudible. “Not one bound by either blood, nor love.” In a more normal volume (that still sounded quiet to Ingrid’s ears, but at least Ingrid did not have to _strain_ her ears to hear it), she asked, “Do you know very much about Viscount Kleiman, Ingrid? I can’t say that I do.”

“Viscount Kleiman was awarded Duscur as its feudal estate after…” Ingrid paused, swallowing down on a memory, on a sudden wave of unease. Weak, weak, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish that sentence, and went on, “I don’t know the viscount very well, but I know his second son well enough to hope his father is too offended by my father demanding a bride price instead of offering a dowry to go forward with the marriage.”

Mercedes frowned. “Why is that?”

Wind gusted out of the north, shooting down their path and on towards the monastery. It reminded Ingrid of home, as much as anything around here could remind her of home. “I… would ask that you not repeat this story. I think there are many who would think I was being foolish to have such concerns as I do, and House Kleiman is high in favor in the royal court, besides.”

“I see.” No matter how long Mercedes had spent away from her original, noble household, there did seem to be some things that were just ingrained in the mind forever. So much the better. “Well, not to worry, Ingrid; I’ve kept more secrets than I can remember.”

If the School of Sorcery was anything like Garreg Mach, Ingrid had no doubt of that. She nodded briskly, launching into her explanation: “I met Viscount Kleiman’s second son at a tourney in Fhirdiad. I was ten years old, and I think he would have been sixteen, or maybe seventeen. He was near to manhood. There was…”

It had been the first tourney she was allowed to attend, and all the more precious for the fact that there had been few after them. There had never been a tourney on the grounds of the Galatea castle within Ingrid’s lifetime, and Ingrid doubted that that would change for at least several years yet. Ingrid had been giddy with excitement, so giddy that she had not even fussed when her mother insisted on dressing her in her best, most restrictive gown. Under normal circumstances, the idea of being taken for the maiden who granted a knight her favor, the prize to be fought over, would have chafed against the mind and body and soul of a girl who longed to be in armor and on horseback in the tiltyard, but this was her _first tourney_ , and such thoughts never entered her head.

So many years ago it had been, and yet every detail remained as vividly stamped on her mind as if it had happened yesterday. It had been late summer, and there was a crisp bite in the air that turned every shadow to a presage of winter. The sky retained from the earliest hours of daybreak the pale, dazzling blue it had dawned with. White clouds chased each other endlessly up and down the horizon; the wind blustered down from the north, adding its voice to the cheers of the spectators.

Sylvain had been unable to make the trip down from Gautier territory, but Felix and Dimitri had been there, and the three of them spent the whole day together. That especially stood out, for it had been the first time Ingrid was allowed to sit with Dimitri during any such event in Fhirdiad—and as it happened, it would be the last time she was allowed to sit with Dimitri, as they grew older and the difference in rank and wealth and prestige grew ever more pronounced.

But Ingrid had not been thinking of that, not then. In the lead-up to the tourney, a vendor had been selling pierogi stuffed with potatoes and mushrooms and quark and ground pork, and the three of them had gone down to the stall to get some, trying to skirt the attention of any adult who would no doubt have thought it improper for three noble children, one of whom was the crown prince, to be going down to a food stall themselves, let alone to buy something like _pierogi_. But they were hungry and curious and pierogi were something new, and there was such a thrill in dodging the censorious attention of their chaperones.

Food was food, but meat and mushrooms were luxuries not often found on the high table of the Galatea great hall, and Ingrid had bought a whole pack of pork and mushroom pierogi to feast on while she watched the tourney and, Goddess willing, the melee that would come after it. Felix was quick to tease her over the amount of food she had bought, but he did _not_ understand what a thrill it was for her to have as much food to eat as she liked, to have so much food that she could still have some left over once her appetite was sated, to be saved for when she was hungry again.

Years on, the flavor of the pierogi was still fresh in Ingrid’s mind. The dough they had been fried in was light and crisp, making a satisfying crunch between her teeth. The filling had been almost blisteringly hot on her tongue and the roof of her mouth, but it had been so juicy, so flavorful, pork and mushrooms mixed with onions and garlic and parsley, and the taste lingered pleasantly in Ingrid’s mouth for hours afterwards. She had thought that, once cold, her leftover pierogi might not be as toothsome, but if anything, they were even better cold.

She and Dimitri and Felix had settled back down in the stands, and close by them had been the then-adolescent second son of then-Lord Kleiman.

“You can imagine that knights participating in a tourney are often injured. Tilting lances have blunt tips, and everyone is supposed to be wearing some sort of armor, but accidents still happen. Some knights can’t afford good armor, and even blunt tilting lances can strike someone the wrong way, or splinter on impact. People can be thrown from their horses’ backs and be trampled; people can be thrown from their horses’ backs and break their necks.”

Mercedes shuddered. “I can’t imagine being willing to put myself in that sort of danger for sport.”

“Really?” Ingrid frowned quizzically. “I would love to be allowed to participate in a tourney, but my father has never allowed it.”

And she understood his reasoning, vexing as it might have been. Men seeking to foster alliances through marriage generally considered it counterintuitive to wed a woman unable to conceive children. Risking that in serious warfare was one thing. Risking it in sport was quite another, and thus, Ingrid could understand her father’s reasoning when once, just once, he forbade her to follow after her older brothers on the tourney circuit. There would be other times. _If my husband does not forbid it_. There would be other times.

“We will have to agree to disagree, then.” And given how smoothly those words flowed from her lips, Ingrid got the impression that Mercedes had said such things quite often. “You were telling me about Viscount Kleiman’s second son?”

“Yes, indeed. There was an accident in the tiltyard that day. Well, more than one, but this was the important one.” Ingrid sighed heavily, ignoring the twinge of pain that protested against this too-deep breath. “It was Lord Gwendal, a knight of Count Rowe’s household, against a very young, very green knight. Lord Gwendal has a fearsome reputation, and for good reason; he would never have utilized anything short of his full strength against any of his opponents, no matter how young or how green they were.”

The Gray Lion, albeit rather less gray in those days, loomed larger than life on the tiltyard, huge and stern with the light of battle-love (that which others might instead term bloodlust) blazing in his eyes like the fires of Ailell. Across from him, his opponent looked tiny by comparison, a mouse in the face of a steel lion gleaming in the sun.

“Lord Gwendal had already faced down many opponents that day, and defeated them all. I had no doubt that he would defeat the young knight, as well.” Not that all of her companions shared her confidence. Felix and Dimitri had made a bet about the outcome of this particular match. Felix favored Lord Gwendal as the obvious choice; Dimitri had been more eager for an underdog to finally prevail against this fearsome and celebrated veteran knight. “They lined up for the joust, and the crowd fell silent.

“Well, Lord Gwendal’s lance struck true; there was never any doubt that it would. The young knight dropped his own lance; it was obvious who had carried the bout. But Lord Gwendal had already unhorsed many opponents with that lance, and though he was undaunted, his lance could only take so much abuse. It split, right down the middle, flinging a host of long splinters at his opponent, and…” Ingrid sucked in another breath. “…And that knight wasn’t wearing much armor.”

The hush that had fallen over the crowd in the first few moments, when it was still unclear just what had happened, had been as resounding as a thunderclap. He didn’t topple from the saddle right away, you know. But the horse, a dappled gray stallion, provided the first clue: he whinnied, swinging his head from side to side, nostrils flared as his braided tail lashed against each of its flanks in turn. He did that for several seconds, pacing up and down while the knight made no move to calm him. Then, something began to drip onto the dust of the tiltyard. Something red.

Then, at last, he fell.

“Well, Lord Gwendal was declared the victor, and the healers rushed out to remove his opponent from the field so that the next bout could go forward. Usually, an ending like that would dampen the audience’s cheer. The last time there was an accident that day, very few people applauded at the end of that bout. But not far from where I was sitting, I heard someone laughing.”

“And that someone was the viscount’s second son?”

“Yes.” Ingrid’s face grew hot. “I know I didn’t know why he was laughing, and I know it’s been many years since that day, and I have not seen him since, and that it is foolish and unkind to draw conclusions regarding his character—“

But Mercedes shook her head uncommonly fiercely, effectively silencing Ingrid. “I don’t think it’s foolish, _or_ unkind.” And even if her voice was just as soft as ever, the steel had returned to remind Ingrid of what lied beneath. “People will show us who they truly are in moments like that, if we let them.” She sighed, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “If the negotiations go as my adoptive father hopes, I don’t think I’ll have any choice but to marry the viscount’s third son. But I hope you don’t have to marry his brother. He sounds like a very unpleasant man.”

Ingrid stared down at the ground. “…Yes, he does.”

But his family was wealthy enough to be of great aid to hers, for the right price.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now seems as good a time as any to mention that I wrote this chapter before Cindered Shadows came out, that I am not treating Cindered Shadows as part of my personal canon, and no information that came to light as the result of this DLC update is going to be featured in this fic.
> 
> [ **CN/TW** : mentions of spousal murder; blood; scars]

The walk back to the monastery was, mercifully, without incident. Having been apprised of potential casualties, Professor Manuela was waiting for them at the gate. After seeing to Sylvain and Ashe, Mercedes pointed her towards Ingrid for examination. Ingrid would have gone on, but all the while, Mercedes was fixing her in a gaze that could not be a glare, for no glare had ever been so gentle, but had yet more intensity to it than even the most fearsome of Ingrid’s mother’s glares. All in all, going on seemed like a bad idea.

Professor Manuela determined that Ingrid had not in fact had one of her ribs broken, but that it was merely cracked. After showering surprisingly effusive praise on Mercedes for her work (it seemed Professor Manuela took the role of healer a little more seriously than Ingrid had given her credit for), Professor Manuela plied a little more healing magic to Ingrid’s side, and told her that if she reported to the infirmary every day for checkups and healing sessions, she could have the rib healed in a week.

Naturally, Ingrid agreed. It was, at best, difficult to train with such an injury. If someone offered her a way to be rid of it more quickly than what her own body could provide, she would have been a fool not to seize that way with both hands.

As the class dispersed, Mercedes made her another offer.

That offer was what saw Ingrid making her way towards the cathedral as the sun sank crimson and dark ochre over the western horizon. She had, in defiance of her own routine and inclinations, been trying to rest her body that day, so she had little occasion to feel fiery twinges of pain shoot through her abdomen. After those hours of respite, feeling that pain again as she traversed the monastery grounds was jarring. Not to mention annoying. Was she just going to feel utterly stiff and sore when she woke tomorrow? (Would she be able to fall asleep at all?)

Hopefully, this would be worth it. Ingrid always had loved a good story, so she thought it decently likely that this pain would be worth it.

(The pain, clustering in her mouth and buzzing against her teeth, kept trying to tell her that it wouldn’t be.)

“Oh, Ingrid!”

Halfway across the green in front of the classroom, Ingrid turned to see Dorothea waving and hurrying to join her. In the dying light, all color was robbed from her form, rendering her a shadow with more life to it than the shadows surrounding it. It wasn’t until they were standing alongside each other that Ingrid could make out her features, and she was human again.

“Dorothea.” Ingrid nodded crisply. “I don’t think I’ve seen you, today.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” In the last throes of the dying light, the sparkle in Dorothea’s eyes was the promise of starlight. “I’ve been working on something; I didn’t want anyone to know what it was while it was still unfinished. Where are you off to this evening?”

“The cathedral. Mercedes asked me to meet her there.”

Dorothea raised an eyebrow. “Oh? She asked me that, as well. I wonder if she invited all of the students. Well…” It was too dark to make out the exact quality of her smile. “Since we seem to be heading to the same place, why don’t we go there together?”

Ingrid prayed that composure and darkness, between them, would be enough to hide any pain that might make its way to her face. “As you like.” As they headed on towards the cathedral, Ingrid asked, curiosity pricking her mind like a thorn, “So, what is it you’ve been working on?”

Dorothea flashed a smile her way. “Oh, that’s a surprise. I’ll talk to you about it in the morning.”

Ingrid frowned, suddenly suspicious. “Am I going to _like_ this surprise?”

Sweet, musical laughter chimed in the air. “I think so. Just wait; you’ll find out soon enough.”

Lengthening shadows doused Garreg Mach in darkness as they made their way on towards the cathedral. They found the bridge deserted, and the gorge below washed away in a sea of mist, the distant treetops like islands. Ingrid could almost they stood above a silent sea, but she knew that the mist would not have buoyed her if she fell, and she did not dwell on such imaginings; she dared not.

Guards and priests drifted in and out of the mist like ghosts, silent and unsmiling. Some were lighting lamps, to dangle baubles of gold in silver mist. Some peered suspiciously at Ingrid and Dorothea as they passed. (It stung. Their suspicion would have been as knives when directed at Ashe. It still stung.) No pilgrims, and in any other year, it would likely have been odd to see no pilgrims during the cathedral on the month of the Blue Sea Star. But Seteth had asked that pilgrims stay in the town below until the day of the Rite, so there they stayed. Ingrid saw no students leaving the cathedral, but that was not so unusual; the last choir practice of the day had ended half an hour ago, and if there were no evening services, you were unlikely to find too many students lingering in the cathedral at this time of night.

Well, hopefully there would be a few here, tonight. Not too many, though; that would have cheapened the experience.

There were lamps hanging on gleaming brass stands stationed all throughout the cathedral. They were easy to overlook during the day, during sunny days when wind or rain did not necessitate closing the doors, when there would be more than enough light pouring in from outside to render pointless keeping the lamps lit. But at night, when the lamps were all that lit the vast, starless gloom of this place, shallow puddles of golden light to compete against the hegemony of cool, dense dark, the lamps became the new focal points in the cathedral, drowning out the altar and the looming statue of Saint Seiros.

In between these shallow puddles of light, though, the gloom ruled uncontested, rendering seeing eyes blind. Ingrid saw no one standing in lamp light. She heard nothing. And when the cathedral was largely dark and empty, it seemed to stretch on for miles.

“Looks like Mercedes isn’t here, yet,” Dorothea remarked, in somewhat more subdued of a tone than Ingrid would have expected—though when she caught sight of the way Dorothea stared leerily into the dark, she understood it a little better.

“Maybe she plans to be late on purpose,” Ingrid speculated. “Perhaps she seeks to build suspense?”

“Oh, I suppose. That does work, sometimes. She should just be careful not to hold off on the grand entrance for too long; that’s a great way to make your audience walk out and demand a refund of the ticket price.” She sighed gustily and rolled her shoulders. “Well, at least there’s no management here to blame her for something that was their idea in the first place. I’m going to find a seat. Coming?”

Silence prevailed as they made their way down the center aisle; even the click of shoe soles against polished stone floor seemed muffled. There were whispers, ghosts of tales, that before the Goddess forsook wicked mankind, she would appear on the altar to console and advise supplicants. Thousands of years ago that must have been, if true, and yet the cathedral retained that sanctity which made unsanctioned noise feel like blasphemy. Thousands of years since the Goddess would have graced this place with her presence, and yet it still felt like, in this place, the Goddess was watching you, evaluating you for any sign of the wickedness that had made her write off this world altogether.

From the entrance, the gloom in between pools of lamplight had seemed absolute. But as Ingrid drew closer to the altar, there came to sight a patch of shadow off to the left that was lighter than the shadows around it. As Ingrid drew closer, it resolved itself into the shape of a person, standing silently in the darkness.

“Ingrid.”

When there came to Ingrid’s ears not Mercedes’s falsetto tones, but a rich, deep voice, she immediately straightened. (Having been standing fairly straight to start with, this was not the most comfortable thing for her rib. It barked a protest, which went ignored.)

If Edelgard noticed either the straightening of Ingrid’s back or her wince, she chose not to comment. Instead, she stepped into the nearest pool of lamplight. Gilded by the light, she looked like the statues Annette had once described seeing in one of the great churches in Enbarr—titans of marble, covered in sheets of beaten gold, imposing and dazzling to the eyes. Ingrid… Ingrid would expect no less of the future emperor.

“Edelgard. I didn’t expect to find you here.” Oh, but that sounded abominably cold. “Did Mercedes ask you here as well?”

“Yes. Truth be told, I was simply curious to see who else would come here tonight.” There was a falter in Edelgard’s voice that it took Ingrid a moment to identify as embarrassment. It was oddly endearing. “And I didn’t think you would be here, either.” Now, embarrassment had morphed to bemused surprise, something almost as endearing. “I would have thought there were other things you considered more important.”

“Oh…” Ingrid could feel heat crawling up her neck, a slow fire that threatened total immolation. (She was grateful for the gloom. It would disguise any redness in her face. She wasn’t sure why she was so relieved.) “Well, yes, I know I should be training, or else reading over my lessons, but I do enjoy listening to stories, especially when it’s something I’m unlikely to have heard before. I thought I could indulge.”

A sudden impulse rose in her. The desire to ask Edelgard if she liked to read burned as red hot as any coal in Ingrid’s mouth; the desire to know what stories she liked was a brand scorching her mind. Not the books she was obligated to read, of course, for Ingrid could imagine that an Imperial princess would have had an exacting education including many dry, boring textbooks no one had _ever_ possessed any desire to read. (Whichever one of her siblings had originally been her father’s heir would no doubt have contended with even more rigorous education, and even more monotonous textbooks. How had her education changed after all those who were heir before her vanished into the ether? Did her tutors knot the truth? Did they, if ignorant, ever wonder where the other princes and princesses had gone?)

Did they have similar tastes in literature, though? Did they both hew towards the chivalric cycles, or did Edelgard find her inclinations leading her down a different path? And Enbarr was such a different beast than anywhere in the Kingdom, too. There could be whole genres of literature Ingrid had never heard of that were wildly popular in the south of the Empire. Perhaps the City of Seiros had genres regarding Seiros and the other Saints that Ingrid had no familiarity with. Perhaps Edelgard enjoyed reading works involving her illustrious ancestor; it was a lineage that anyone would have taken pride in.

And all of these questions now clamored on her lips, but before Ingrid could throw propriety to the winds and ask any of them, Edelgard was nodding. “I’ll confess some small interest on my own account; I have heard that Mercedes tells very good ghost stories.” From whom she had heard it, she would not say. Edelgard’s jaw tightened, ever so slightly. “I just hope it’s not too cruel in its telling. There are many who have suffered far more than they ever deserved on the road to death. I’ve little stomach for such tales.”

“I can’t imagine Mercedes would like those sorts of stories,” Ingrid hastened to assure her, her stomach stabbed with a blade of panic at the idea that Edelgard might _leave_. “She’s really very gentle; I can’t imagine her thinking that pointless cruelty would make for a good story. I…” She faltered, the heat in her neck slowly creeping up her jaw. “I hope you enjoy yourself.”

“Hmm.” Edelgard looked over her shoulder, at something behind Ingrid. She looked momentarily taken aback, but then her expression softened into something Ingrid didn’t quite recognize, something weary and old and caring. She… It made her look like a completely different person. “Excuse me. I think I see Lysithea.”

She slipped past Ingrid, out into the gloom.

Ingrid felt stiff as a statue, her mind wheeling frantically from one topic to another in defiance of the sudden still that had struck her body.

A knowing laugh broke her free.

“Dorothea…” She was standing in the gloom, and Ingrid really could not make her face out at all, but she had a sinking suspicion as to what would have been found there. “I… thought you had gone to sit down.”

“Oh, I’m _sure_ you did,” Dorothea nearly sang, pressing her fist to her mouth. “I’m sure you forgot _all_ about me. But I was _right_ here, and you are just _adorable_.”

“What… are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb, Ingrid; it doesn’t suit you at all.”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“If you say so,” Dorothea trilled, making her way to one of the pews towards the front of the cathedral.

Ingrid had a feeling that she was not going to leave it at that, no matter what she claimed. Once again, ignorance did not seem at all the safest mode of existence. It seemed more like ignorance was a mouth full of teeth waiting until it came around on the next pass to bite her.

Whatever ignorance might or might not choose to do to her, Ingrid eventually took a seat on the pew next to where Dorothea had settled. Edelgard and Lysithea joined them a couple of minutes later. She could hear the two of them conducting a conversation in undertones lost in the vast space of the cathedral, but started to sound a little more like an argument before it was abruptly cut off. The two of them stopped at the end of the pew where Ingrid and Dorothea were already sitting, staring at each other with an intensity obvious even in the dark. They held that stare for several moments before Edelgard shook her head and went in first, sitting down on Ingrid’s right side. This close (Ingrid didn’t think they had ever been so close before), Ingrid could smell something. She thought it might be perfume, though she could not have put a name to the scent. It was sweet, but not cloyingly so, and slightly earthy. It reminded Ingrid of those days at home in late winter when the snow would start to melt and the first flowers of spring—what _were_ their names?—began to wake from their sleep.

Ingrid hoped Mercedes’s story would be a long one. It was a pleasant scent to be sitting next to.

And as if summoned by the power of Ingrid’s thoughts, Mercedes melted out of the darkness, having apparently entered through the side door on their left. “Good evening,” she said cheerily. “Is it just the four of you tonight?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Dorothea remarked. “Funny; you’d think more people would like a good ghost story.”

“I’m sure they’re just busy,” Mercedes assumed in reply, and Ingrid supposed they were just going to ignore Annette screaming about ghosts one night last week, at around four in the morning, so loudly that the students on the second floor of the dormitory could all hear her. “Besides, ghost stories are best when there aren’t too many people around, don’t you think?”

Lysithea mumbled something that did _not_ sound like an agreement, but even after Edelgard directed another long stare her way, she did not get up.

And it seemed that, to Mercedes, anyone who was of two minds regarding ghost stories would have to decide on their own whether or not they wanted to stay and listen. She slid into the pew in front of her audience, propping her elbows on the back of that pew to help her get a better look at the four of them. Not that, as night lengthened, anyone was going to be doing a lot of looking at anyone else. They were already sitting in deep shadow. Before long, they’d be plunged into total darkness.

Judging by the anticipatory note in Mercedes’s voice, that may well have been what she was counting on. “Once upon a time, in a seaside town in what was once Nuvelle territory, there was a lord named Alaric. He made his wealth trading with Brigid and Albinea and Dagda, and all agreed that he had been very canny in his business dealings, for he was very wealthy, indeed. With that wealth, he built a fabulous castle with jade towers and emerald spires and walls of diamond. He had many fine horses with bridles of gold, and the buttons on all of his shoes were of amethyst.

“But Lord Alaric, though he was wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, could not seem to keep a wife.

“His first wife was a lady he met in Albinea, and when she suddenly stopped visiting town, no one thought much of it when Lord Alaric told them that she had deserted him and gone home to the wastelands of Albinea. Of course she would do something like that; who could expect fidelity from a faithless foreigner?”

Judging by what Mercedes’s voice, and judging by the fact that this was supposed to be a _scary_ story, Ingrid would guess: everyone. After pausing and clearing her throat, Mercedes resumed:

“His next wife was the third daughter of Lord Nuvelle. Her older sisters were already married, and she had not hoped to marry half as well as them. She wept happy tears, streaming past her smiling lips, as she wed her charming suitor, clothed in a dazzling gown of cloth of silver that he had provided for her to wear. She who had expected never to surpass her sisters had shot past their wildest hopes, and looked forward to many years of bliss with her new husband.

“But some months after the wedding, the townsfolk no longer saw her out and about, and her sisters and her father no longer received letters from the castle with diamond walls and emerald spires. There was no sign of this third daughter of Lord Nuvelle anywhere. When Lord Nuvelle rode to his castle, Lord Alaric claimed that she had run away with a trader from Dagda. Lord Nuvelle did not believe a word of that, but there was no evidence that Lord Alaric had done anything to his daughter. And while Lord Nuvelle _was_ his son-in-law’s liege lord, Lord Alaric’s wealth made moving against him more of a risk than Lord Nuvelle was willing to chance.”

Ingrid could not help but squirm in her seat. Glenn was as high as Ingrid’s father had ever aimed for her, and even he had been ineligible to inherit the title of Duke Fraldarius. Though he was intent on procuring a wealthy man for a son-in-law, he never overshot his own title.

Mercedes gave no sign of disquiet at what she detailed, but Ingrid’s eyes drifted over towards where Dorothea sat. Ingrid would have had to be blind and deaf not to know what Dorothea was after when she struck up conversations with the young men around the monastery—Ingrid had looked at them in much the same fashion as her; she recognized the gleam in Dorothea’s eyes as a reflection of the consideration in her own. She wondered, sometimes, just what Dorothea envisioned of her future, if she managed to marry any of those young men.

Already, it was too dark to make out properly the quality of Dorothea’s expression, but Ingrid could discern no tension in her shoulders or her back.

Lord Alaric, it would seem, _was_ especially unlucky in love. His third wife was a child of Count Charon, and within a month, he was claiming that she had gone to Enbarr to be the mistress of a traveling merchant. As he went through wife after wife, he had to look further and further afield, for his reputation was grown as sinister as his castle was beautiful, and no father living nearby was willing to allow him the hand of their daughter. Who, Mercedes asked beseechingly (and it really was a good simulation), would give Lord Alaric the love he so craved?

Lysithea made a shaky, grumbling noise about how oh, she was _so_ sure it was love he craved.

Ingrid’s eyes fixed on Edelgard, but though they were sitting close enough alongside each other that Ingrid thought she could have made something out if she squinted very hard, what little she could make out of Edelgard’s face was completely unaffected.

“Lord Alaric searched far and wide for a girl who would be his seventh wife, but it was not until he traveled to the far east of the Empire, to the southern foothills of Fódlan’s throat, that he found someone who had not been turned against him by the wild rumors that surrounded him.

“Sieglinde was a woodsman’s daughter, young and fair and strong. She had never traveled more than ten miles from her home in the foothills of those treacherous mountains, and she was so dazzled by the sight of this lord, garbed in cloth of gold as bright as the sun, the amethyst buttons on her shoes sparkling like stars, the gray hairs in his beard the pale shine of moonlight, that at first she thought him one of the Saints come to earth. Her family was so poor; she had never imagined such wealth, let alone _seen_ it. She couldn’t imagine what to say.

“Sieglinde’s family was poor, and her parents had many mouths to feed, and not much food with which to feed them. Her parents were thrilled when this dazzling lord from the west made an offer for their daughter—“ Mercedes held her hands up in the air as if in beseechment or thanks “—finally, someone had recognized her worth. Lord Alaric paid them such a hefty bride price that after Sieglinde departed with him, they removed to a city on the eastern coast and lived in wealth and comfort for the rest of their days, ever rejoicing at the good fortune that had brought their son-in-law to their door.

“The journey to the western edge of the Empire was a long one. On the road, especially as they drew further west, few people they passed on the road were willing to meet Lord Alaric’s gaze. They were no doubt dazzled by his appearance as she had been, Sieglinde thought, and did not trouble herself over it. Who would not be dazzled by this man, in looks like one of the Saints returned to life?

“They passed Lord Nuvelle’s castle, and Sieglinde was struck by the hostility he showed her intended. But Lord Alaric told her that Lord Nuvelle simply begrudged him his great wealth, and Sieglinde saw no reason not to believe him. Lord Nuvelle’s clothes had seemed as rags next to the radiance of his vassal’s rich garments, and Sieglinde had had much experience of greedy lords in her old home in the foothills.

“They reached the town where Lord Alaric lived, and the townspeople stared after Sieglinde with dark looks and incomprehensible whispers. But Sieglinde was not daunted. No doubt they thought her, woodsman’s daughter from the foothills of Fódlan’s throat, too low for this lord who must be richer than every king on the earth. She would do all she could to earn their respect, and then they would stare and whisper no more.”

Ingrid kept waiting to hear the wind moan, but instead there was such silence as if the whole world was listening to Mercedes’s tale. Tonight’s storyteller seemed the focal point of the world; the cathedral felt both empty and unbearably full, as if it hosted the whole world invisible as an audience for the tale. Ingrid felt distinctly claustrophobic. On her right, Edelgard made a barely audible noise through slightly parted lips.

“Sieglinde and Lord Alaric were wed that very day, by a priest who stammered through the readings and hastened from the chapel the moment they were bound in marriage. But Sieglinde only assumed that the priest, like the townspeople, thought her too low to wed such a man as her new husband. She did not let it trouble her; after all, the servants in the castle were perfectly nice to her, even if they were a bit quiet.

“For a week, Sieglinde was as happy as she had ever been. Lord Alaric was a charming, gentle husband, and Sieglinde enjoyed every moment that she spent with him. But a week after their wedding, Lord Alaric had to go to Albinea on business. He would be away for a month, and Sieglinde wept bitterly at the news.

“’Weep not, gentle wife,’ Lord Alaric said to her. ‘I give you this responsibility while I am away, to fill your days with a lady’s joy.’

“Lord Alaric gave her a large set of keys on a ring. All save one were made of gold, the head set with a stone, ruby or jasper or sapphire or any number of other gems.” Now barely visible, Mercedes held up one hand, index finger pointed towards the ceiling, while the rest were folded down to her palm. “Now, this other key stood out to Sieglinde right away, for it was quite odd in appearance when she compared it with the others. It was just the same size as the other keys, but it was unadorned iron, cold to the touch where the other keys were warm. Sieglinde separated this key from the others and stared at it, only for Lord Alaric to put his hand over hers, forcing the iron key back down with the gold.

“’These are the keys to all the rooms in the castle. As my wife, the freedom is yours to go wherever you wish, excepting one room only. The door unlocked by the iron key, you must never open or pass beyond. This is my one and only command to you as your husband. I return to you in one month’s time; do not despair. Farewell.’

“He was gone, and Sieglinde was left the mistress of a castle she knew very little about. But that was alright, she felt, since it was the perfect opportunity to learn more about her new home. She had felt too embarrassed to explore while her husband was here; she had feared he would think her a child, or worse yet, too greedy to be trusted. She did not know when she would get an opportunity like this again.

“It took Sieglinde more than a week to go through all of the golden keys on the key ring. Each room was more wonderful than the last. There were treasure rooms piled up to the ceiling with gold coins and jewels, treasure rooms piled up to the ceiling with bracelets and necklaces and brooches and earrings, treasure rooms piled to the ceiling with bolts of dyed silk. There was a library that made Sieglinde first lament that she had had so little experience of books, then made her steel her resolve to learn better. Close to her bedchamber, there was a solar whose furniture was made of quartz that flashed and glimmered in the sun, as if a rainbow was captured in every fiber of stone. There was a room full of real glass mirrors, and a room occupied by a hundred statues, and a room hung with a hundred paintings. An armory contained suits of armor crusted with garnets and pearls. A dovecote revealed rows upon rows of gently cooing gray doves wearing tiny collars of abalone.”

Dorothea snorted. “It all sounds just a little too good to be true,” she muttered sardonically.

“Indeed,” Mercedes replied, more mildly than Ingrid had heard many storytellers reply to those who interrupted their tales—but then, Mercedes was not like them. “It took a little while, but eventually, Sieglinde had explored the castle grounds from the highest tower to the stables and the smokehouse. There was nothing left to attend to but her duties as mistress of the castle, and to wait for her husband to return. The former, she was learning swiftly, and she had given the servants no reason to complain of their new mistress’s gaucheness. The latter was more difficult to contend with.

“There was also the matter of the iron key whose cold chilled her skin every time Sieglinde held the key ring. She had seen no door which looked like one the iron key might open, and her curiosity over it grew with each day that passed. None of the servants she asked seemed to know anything about it—if she was to take their shrugs and averted eyes as ignorance. Not even the chamberlain could tell her what door that key opened, and while Lord Alaric was between wives, it was the chamberlain who bore responsibility for the keys and all the doors that they unlocked.

“Well, a week before her husband was due to return, Sieglinde could restrain her curiosity no longer. Wherever this room was, it would not hurt to have a peek. So long as she did not go inside, Lord Alaric need never know that she had opened the door. Now, if only she could find it.

“A quick journey around the castle reminded Sieglinde of what she already knew; none of the rooms in the castle, from the ground up to the tallest tower, was a room that could be unlocked by the iron key. The doors to the outbuildings either did not have locks, or else could be unlocked by one of the golden keys. For a long day, Sieglinde searched in vain, growing more frustrated with each passing hour.

“Finally, it was time for supper, and Sieglinde was helping two of the kitchen maids search for a particular bottle of wine in the wine cellar, when Sieglinde noticed something odd.”

Ingrid felt her stomach clench. Most of the stories she read had not been stories that particularly _meant_ to frighten their readers, but she could not remember a single story where noticing something odd in the cellar and then going to investigate it had ever ended particularly well for the investigator. You found caches of gold buried in caves in the mountains in stories, _not_ in the wine cellar. And yet, like Sieglinde, her curiosity was piqued beyond endurance. Every impulse demanded she know what door the iron key unlocked.

Mercedes’s voice dropped to a low whisper that it quickly became clear was her natural register as she forged ahead. “Far off, at the other end of the cellar, the wall was lit by torches. At the right end, the corner where two walls met was plainly visible, but when Sieglinde looked left, all she could see was deep shadow. Slipping away from the kitchen maids, Sieglinde hurried over to the patch of shadow.

“She found a door recessed into the wall. Could this be the door her husband had cautioned her against opening? But this door had no lock, and when Sieglinde opened it, she saw only darkness. Shining a torch in the doorway revealed a staircase that went on down, down, down, until it was also swallowed by darkness.”

Lysithea made a small, garbled noise.

“Sieglinde was used to long walks up and down steep hills; the idea of walking down this staircase did not daunt her. She started to make her way down the stairs, holding the torch aloft against the encroaching darkness.

“The first few dozen steps or so were made from smooth brown stone, but after that, they became steps hewn from the earth, rippling with great roots. On and on it went, just straight down, until Sieglinde felt certain she must be miles below the surface of the earth. Then, all of a sudden, the steps stopped.

“There, at the base of the staircase, was a door. It was old, scratched wood utterly at odds with all of the other doors Sieglinde had seen in the castle. The lock was made of iron; she had found the door her chilly iron key would unlock.

“Well, after all the time Sieglinde had spent just to reach the door, she wasn’t just going to leave it _locked_ , was she?” Skepticism dripped from Mercedes’s mouth. “No, of course she wasn’t. No one would have. But—“ and here, her voice once more grew hushed “—she would soon wish that she had never found this passage, let alone opened the door.

“Sieglinde put the iron key in the lock, and she didn’t even have to turn it. The door sprang open all at once the moment the key slid all the way into the lock. A draught of warm, wet air hit Sieglinde’s face, but beyond the threshold of the room, all was dark as pitch.

“She shone the torch in the doorway, and saw that the walls were made of black stone, glistening with an oily sheen. As Sieglinde saw the room in full, her blood ran as cold as the key still in her hand.

“There were two piles at the back of the room. One was of women’s gowns, silk and velvet and lambswool, embroidered with glinting gold and silver thread and sewn with glittering jewels. The other pile was of white linen shifts, all crumpled in a heap. On the far right wall, six pairs of shoes were lined up in a row.”

This time, the noise that came out of Lysithea’s mouth was considerably louder, and unmistakably a whimper.

“But the strangest sight that awaited Sieglinde was yet to come. For in the center of the floor, there was a pit.

“It was an oval shape, with small white protrusions poking from the walls. Another gust of warm, wet air billowed up from the pit, and when Sieglinde held her torch so that it illuminated the pit especially, she saw that its walls were a fleshy pink, and that the rim of the pit was ringed with a dry, crusty, reddish-brown stain.”

Well. That had… not been what Ingrid was expecting. Something horrible, yes, but not quite _this_. This was… she wasn’t even sure what was happening. Well, she knew _part_ of what was happening, but the pit…

(Every time she tried to speculate, her mind rebelled against what it pondered.)

“No matter how she tried, Sieglinde could not entirely make sense of what she had seen, but what she _could_ make sense of was enough. She slammed the door shut, wrenched the key from the lock, and ran back upstairs, far away from this strange and terrible room.

“But what was she to do? Sieglinde _had_ heard whispers of her husband’s six previous wives in her time in the castle. Lord Alaric had assured her that they had simply left, but whatever had happened in that room, what Sieglinde had seen there surely gave the lie to his stories. It gave the lie to the gentle, charming face her husband had shown her, proving it to be a mask over something ghastly and bloody.

“And whatever had happened here, Sieglinde couldn’t believe the servants didn’t know _something_ about it; this castle might have been bigger than her old home, but it wasn’t so big that you could be completely ignorant of something sinister going on, if that sinister something happened _six times_. They knew, and they had kept quiet and done nothing, or worse, they had helped him.

“What was she to do? The village closest to Sieglinde’s home was on no map that could be found anywhere in the west of the Empire, and she had no idea just what she would need to take with her on such a journey. Would her husband chase after her? Would her family take her back? Would she be waylaid on the road by highwaymen or monsters?

“Whatever else was true, Sieglinde could at least console herself that she had time to find out how to escape. She had touched nothing in the room, left no sign that she had been there. She did not now know how she could escape, but she could pretend she had never seen the room, and learn how best to find her way back to the east of the Empire.

“But when Sieglinde looked down at the key ring, she saw with horror that the iron key was smeared with blood. She tried to wash it off, but more blood oozed up from the iron to replace it. Knowing not what else to do, Sieglinde took the iron key off of the key ring and hid it in a letter box in her bedchamber.

“All too soon, Lord Alaric returned to the castle. Sieglinde tried to keep her fear from her face as she greeted him, but she was as pale as a ghost and Lord Alaric was not without eyes. He nodded curtly and asked for her to let him see the key ring he had given her before he left for Albinea.

“’This is no good!’ he exclaimed when he had the key ring in his hands. ‘Where is the iron key that was on this ring with the others?’

“’Oh, I think I left it in my bedchamber.’

“’Bring it to me, my wife, for I wish to see it as well.’

“Nearly dumb with terror, Sieglinde fetched the key from her bedchamber. All the while, she tried to comfort herself with the idea that Lord Alaric might merely send her away in disgrace, rather than doing to her whatever had been done to his previous wives. She was not a noblewoman from a powerful family, not anyone who could kick up a fuss over what had happened. She was a commoner by birth, and if her noble husband declared her mad and a liar, other nobles would believe him. She would sooner be called a madwoman and a liar than whatever else could befall her.

“Lord Alaric’s face darkened when he saw the bloody key. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you have disobeyed my one command. Well, madame, if you are so eager to see what which is forbidden to you, you can see it again, and let that sight be the strongest memory you will ever have.’

“Sieglinde begged him for mercy, but he was unmoved, saying only that there must be consequences for disobedience. Seeing no trace of clemency in the stone of his face, she begged him to allow her time to pray, so that she might face what came with peace in her heart.”

Ingrid tried to imagine facing ‘what came’ with anything resembling peace in her heart. She didn’t think she could even if it was in battle, even if she had acquitted herself well in defense of her liege lord or her king. Every knight hoped for their death to be such a death as that, something that actually _meant_ something, rather than the meaningless death of illness or accident. (She tried to imagine, always tried to imagine, that Glenn had died with something, anything resembling peace in his heart.) But she was just too enamored of life for that. A knight must be prepared to lay down their lives in defense of their liege lords, and Ingrid thought that she could, if need be, but not peacefully. She could only hope to do so valiantly.

Valiance, she thought, was a quality often denied to wives.

“’A quarter of an hour, and then you must come with me,’ Lord Alaric told her sternly, and then he sent her to the chapel, locking the door behind her so that she could not try to escape by any means.

“Sieglinde’s eyes were dry as she knelt by the altar. Her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t even clasp them together, but she was beyond tears. For many minutes, Sieglinde thought she was beyond words as well, but eventually, Sieglinde was able to put together an old prayer she had learned as a child, a prayer to Saint Seiros: a prayer to give the weak the power to prevail against tyrants.”

Edelgard snorted indelicately, but Ingrid’s attention was so fixed upon Mercedes that she barely heard it.

“All too soon, Lord Alaric unlocked the door and, seizing Sieglinde by her elbow, began to draw her back towards the wine cellar in the castle. What little hope Sieglinde might have had that any of the castle servants might help her was dashed when they did not pass a single one of them on their way to the wine cellar; they had gone into hiding to avoid drawing their master’s wrath upon themselves.

“The staircase that had seemed so terribly long when Sieglinde walked down it alone passed her by in the blink of an eye. Before she knew it, they were in the strange, terrible room, and Lord Alaric was demanding that she take off all of her clothing.

“While Sieglinde made a show of fumbling over the laces on the back of her gown, Lord Alaric turned his back on her to put the torch he had taken with him in a sconce. Here, she saw her chance. Finding a strength she had not known she possessed, Sieglinde went to her husband and pushed him into the pit.

“Sieglinde had not seen any sort of bottom to the pit, and she expected Lord Alaric to simply fall and fall and fall until he vanished from sight. But instead, he hovered in the air in the pit, the rim coming just above the crown of his head. He stared up at her in what she could only think of as dumb terror, his mouth hanging open.

“Then,” and though it was now totally dark and Ingrid could not see Mercedes’s face at all, just the outline of her body, Ingrid could _feel_ the smile curling over Mercedes’s lips, “the pit snapped shut.”

Ingrid didn’t need to guess where the gagging noise was coming from.

“The floor convulsed as the pit snapped open and shut, over and over again. The screams of the unfortunate man escaped the pit for a moment, but only for a moment, and then the only sounds that remained were the squelch of flesh tearing, the crunch of bone breaking. Another gust of warm, wet air roared up out of the pit, and this gust was heavy with the tang of blood.

“Retrieving the torch from the sconce, Sieglinde fled from the room.

“Well, if you thought Sieglinde might find herself in more trouble now that her husband was dead and she could not produce a body, you are luckily mistaken. The Lord Nuvelle she encountered on the way to her new home was the brother of she who had been Lord Alaric’s second wife, their father having died some years before. All that must be done to convince him to give Sieglinde his support was to show him the room at the bottom of the staircase in the wine cellar. Once that was taken care of, Sieglinde worried no more.

“Sieglinde became very popular in Nuvelle territory for ridding the land of the phantom that had long haunted the nightmares of young women and their fathers alike. Some years later, she married a much nicer gentleman, and she was very happy for the rest of her days.

“The door in the wine cellar was removed, and the threshold was bricked up. Many years later, after Sieglinde had died a very old and wealthy lady, treasure hunters broke down the wall and went inside. They found a rotted oak door at the bottom of a short staircase. Beyond that, there was nothing but an empty room. Well…” Mercedes laughed softly. “It wasn’t quite empty. In the center of the floor, they saw a small pile of teeth.”

And then, Mercedes was silent, and though silence greeted her, it felt also as if a great host rushed from the cathedral, leaving it blessedly and unbearably empty again.

Ingrid did not know quite what to say.

Others were not struck down with the same lack of knowing.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone tell the story with a pit in it before,” Edelgard remarked, a note clinging to the underside of her voice that could not quite be called apprehension.

“Oh, you’ve heard it before?” Mercedes, meanwhile, sounded openly, undeniably eager. She had resumed her falsetto false-register, so smoothly that Ingrid could almost believe that that _was_ her natural register. Almost. “I’m surprised; I didn’t think it was the sort of story they’d tell a princess.”

“Hmm, the nursey maid who told it to me _was_ dismissed shortly afterwards, so I think my caregivers might agree with you. But I’ve never heard the story told with a pit in it. In the version I heard, the seventh wife found all of her predecessors’ corpses in the room. Dorothea?”

“I’ve heard it told once or twice,” Dorothea said slowly, as if waking from a dream, “and I’ve certainly never heard it told like _that_. The room was always full of bodies in those versions, too.”

“Then, is it the custom in the Kingdom for this tale to have a pit instead of corpses?”

Ingrid managed to shake herself from silence enough to mutter, “I have _never_ heard this tale before in my life.” And yet, so little of what went on it in it had been a surprise. Asides from the _pit_ , and what came after Sieglinde pushed her fiend of a husband in there, nothing had proceeded in ways that truly took Ingrid aback. Finding it untouchable, Ingrid put that thought away. It was rather more difficult to put aside the painful churning in her stomach.

“It’s not the custom anywhere,” Mercedes explained, “anywhere but in here, since I made that part up for you all tonight.”

The reactions came all at once, over top of each other.

“Have you ever considered a career in set design?” Dorothea was laughing, but the laugh was shallow and shaky.

A guttural, drawn out noise announced Lysithea’s continued presence. “Ugh, _why_?”

Struck silent again, Ingrid could only stare at where she thought Mercedes was, and wish that one of the lamps was closer nearby, so that she could convey her feelings on the revelation— _all_ of her feelings—in something resembling proper light.

Edelgard shifted, letting out a low, long breath. “So, the pit was _your_ idea?” she asked, in a tone as if she was uncertain as to whether she should be shocked or impressed. “That’s surprising. May I ask what inspired it?”

“Oh, you know,” Mercedes said, the faint bubbles of laughter riding on her voice. “I was just thinking that the original story was really very gory when it didn’t have to be, and I was wondering how I could make the scene as effective without it. And then I thought about it, and I decided: less is more!”

“Well, that was definitely _scarier_ than a room full of dead bodies would have been,” Lysithea muttered. Somehow, Ingrid got the impression that Lysithea didn’t necessarily consider that a _good_ thing—she supposed she could address later that Annette wasn’t the _only_ student in the ground floor dormitories who’d woken everyone up in the night screaming about ghosts.

Edelgard _almost_ laughed—almost. The sound that escaped her mouth instead was merely the ghost of a laugh. “I… suppose it is. Well, I must applaud you; I agree that wanton butchery just laid out for the audience doesn’t make for good storytelling.”

Ingrid might have had something to say about that—some of her favorite stories depicted battles in _exacting_ detail, and she would never be persuaded to regard them as inferior stories just because of that; she actually quite enjoyed being able to read about the battles in such detail. But this was neither the time, nor the place. She’d sooner debate tastes in literature in the daylight.

“A touch of gore has its place in stories like this,” Mercedes murmured pensively, not quite in agreement or dispute. “A pool of blood can heighten suspense, and a bloody rag can strike fear into your heart if you don’t know where it came from.” She paused, her frown perfectly audible to Ingrid’s ears. “Or even if you do know where it came from. But I don’t think stories should have too much of it in them, if the storyteller has another option. Life already has too much blood in it; I don’t see why we should put so much blood into stories, when it doesn’t have to drip with it.”

-

That night, sleep was an elusive beast. Ingrid had already suspected it would be; she had, in defiance of all her attitudes for the best uses of the day, attempted to take a nap that afternoon, and had been unable to hold sleep in her hands for even a moment. Her discomfort was certainly part of it. It had been forgotten while she was listening to Mercedes’s story, but had come back in full force once Ingrid found herself having to walk back to her room (The stairs had been especially troublesome). Professor Manuela had advised that she sleep propped up on her pillows, but such a position felt completely unnatural, and it did little towards easing the pain in Ingrid’s side. She would try to lie like that throughout the night. She did not know how much sleep she was going to be getting while she lied like that.

The pain was an excuse. A compelling excuse, even, and on some level, it might even qualify as a reason. But it was not the primary reason. It was not an excuse. Ingrid had not forgotten the morning. She had not forgotten the sun through the trees, not forgotten the green smell of the forest, not forgotten blood, not forgotten _the eyes_.

She did not regret it, you know. She did not regret it. She did not regret it at all. She had done her duty, and done her duty in the knowledge that had they let the bandits go about their business, they would have gone on to hurt innocent people, maybe kill people. The sacred duty of the faithful was to punish the wicked, and those wicked men would certainly have done harm to the innocent had the class not intervened. It was a knight’s duty to protect the innocent. She did not regret it.

And yet, his face kept returning to her mind, his cheeks pinched with hunger, his cracked lips, _those eyes_. It wouldn’t leave, no matter how she wished it to. It just sat there behind her eyelids, like a blotch of ink on an otherwise unblemished piece of paper.

She didn’t regret it. It was not regret that was pricking at the end of her tongue, was it? Oh, what was that she felt pricking at her tongue, scratching at the doors of her mind, whispering through the keyhole? If she just opened the door…

But Ingrid recoiled at the thought. Better to let ivy grow over that door, choking the lock and tangling the hinges. (Better not to think about why she wished for that.) A knight was not supposed to particularly enjoy killing for its own sake. A knight could take pride and satisfaction in having fulfilled their duty, but bloodshed was supposed to be a means to an end only, and never an end in and of itself. A duty, not a joy. A duty, not a joy. She might be yet to find a way over the wall that stood between herself and knighthood, but at least Ingrid would not have to train herself away from enjoying killing.

Doubtless, she would regret this in the morning, but Ingrid did not see that she was going to be getting a lot of sleep, tonight. She sighed and hauled herself out of bed, lighting the candle on her dresser (It was halfway through the month, and she had been sparing with the usage of her candles. She had plenty of them left. She’d been good. She could indulge, just this once). Even if she couldn’t sleep, surely she could get some reading done. Maybe she could write letters to home, or do some of her schoolwork. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Instead of going for the sheets of paper or rolls of parchment in one of the drawers in her dresser, Ingrid’s eyes were drawn to her reflection in the basin of water that sat there. Still, she shunned the mirror when looking for truth; water spoke more clearly.

What the water showed her was a tired face. Unbroken resolve, but something had joined the shadows made by loss and grief. It was… uncertain. Yes, Ingrid was uncertain as to just what it was. She was tired. She ought not look for meaning in water when she was so tired. Like as not, her weary mind would conjure apparitions and phantasms to obscure the truth.

She really should sleep. Why risk disgracing herself by setting things up so that, come the following morning, she might well fall asleep in class? Even if she was unlikely to actually fall asleep, she ought to at least _rest_. She certainly shouldn’t be wasting candlewax.

Ingrid could not think of a single thing to do that would not have been, somehow, a waste. Perhaps that, too, was a sign.

Ingrid was soon to receive another one.

She stood in a narrow, ovoid wash of golden light, and beyond that, all was shadow and gloom and dark. Out of the dark, there came a familiar sort of noise, to a young woman who had for the last couple of months been living in a dormitory with other young men and women who frequently experienced disturbed sleep.

A muffled voice, crying out in the dark. A dull thump like a book falling from a table, or feet slamming against a floor, or a bed hitting a wall.

Ingrid took up the candlestick, and made for the door.

The night was dark; the mist that had swirled a sea in the gorge had risen up and veiled the sky. Nevertheless, Ingrid’s candle burned bright enough to reveal that the door next to hers was open, and the resident looking outside.

“I think I heard something falling,” Marianne whispered, a true whisper compared to her own normal, whispery tones, so quiet that Ingrid had to strain to hear. Her long hair was loose and tangled, hanging like a curtain over her face and… and, honestly, making her look like a creature from a dream, though Ingrid would sooner gouge out her tongue than admit it. “It was, umm, it was somewhere down the hall?”

As if in response, there came a long, harsh moan, barely muffled by wood and stone.

Ingrid knew the voice.

Her feet carried her down the corridor without any input from her mind; it was only when she was at the foot of the small staircase that she realized that Marianne was following after her. When she turned to look at her, Marianne was crushing the sleeve cuffs of her frilly nightgown in her hands and staring at her in awkward, wide-eyed silence.

“You can go back to bed, Marianne,” Ingrid murmured, praying her voice was low enough to keep from waking anyone who might have been contentedly sleeping. They had gotten enough complaints from Hilda as it was, and given what she was complaining about, Ingrid did not like to contemplate her reaction if she had to deal with those complaints too many times more. “I know which room it’s coming from.”

Marianne nodded, her gaze fixed now upon the floor. “I’d just be in the way,” she muttered.

“You’re not in the way, Marianne.” One day, she would uncover why such a quiet, unassuming girl constantly thought herself in the way, constantly thought herself a hindrance. Ingrid had known many hindrances in her life, and though Marianne was often clumsy with anything that wasn’t a sword or a lance or a curry comb, though she often grew tongue-tied or silent when spoken to, it took a lot more than that to make someone a hindrance. One day, she would find out why. Not now. “I just don’t think she’s going to want an audience. Not a crowd.”

Whether Ingrid had convinced her was… questionable. No, not questionable, certain: she had not convinced her at all. But Marianne was back in her room, and Ingrid was at a loss for the incantation that would put some measure of confidence into her heart, and the night was too deep and too dark to go looking for incantations that would banish shadows. (That certainly boded well for what she was actually planning to do.) Ingrid… let it go. As much as she could let anything go. Which wasn’t much.

The flame at the tip of the candle wick bobbed and pulsed as Ingrid traversed the distance to the most likely—no, certain—door. No wind could be found to affect it so, so the same night-thought returned to her: reflection of her own heartbeat, as she waited to hear another cry.

By now, nearly everyone’s reaction, when woken by the distant specter of someone else’s nightmare, was to roll over, go back to sleep, and try to ignore it. Give the would-be sleeper the chance to deal with it privately, and not risk humiliating them by sticking their noses into things that didn’t concern them. That was what Ingrid should do—go back to her room, snuff out her pulsing candlelight, and try to sleep.

She couldn’t let it go. It was her problem, wasn’t it? They were on the same dormitory floor, and Ingrid woke every few nights to the sound of her sleep being violently disrupted by whatever it was that haunted her dreams. How was she supposed to let it go? Ingrid _didn’t_ let things go, not graciously. More often, those things were pried from her closed fists.

There was the door: Ingrid could hear harsh, ragged breathing on the other side of it. She sighed, transferred the candlestick to her off hand, and knocked.

All at once, the ragged breathing quieted—awake, it seemed. “I am sorry to have woken you, Professor,” Edelgard called from inside. “Please, don’t—“

“Actually, it’s Ingrid,” Ingrid called in turn, lips painted with a frown.

Silence again, and Ingrid expected the end of it to come with Edelgard sending her away, without ever opening the door. If someone would not leave it alone, that had become the response deemed most appropriate: send them away with assurances of continued health, without ever showing their face. Ingrid had gotten much the same treatment as that from Marianne and Dimitri.

But the night was determined to surprise, for after a faint sound of footfalls on wood, the door swung slowly open.

Bizarrely, Ingrid was struck first by how similar Edelgard’s nightgown was to her own: a long, plain white shift. It certainly looked to be much finer than Ingrid’s own, soft linen that had likely never been mended so much as once, for surely a princess’s sleepwear would just be replaced, were any rips or tears discovered. But besides that, it was, well, it was just a plain, white shift. Ingrid did not see that there could be a whole lot of variation between plain, white shifts. Once you took into account the different body types of the wearers, they were basically the same thing. That her mind would linger on it was genuinely just _strange_ , and to Ingrid it spoke of how tired she must be, regardless of how elusive sleep was proving.

She was struck second by the haggard pallor of Edelgard’s face. Ingrid had never seen Edelgard immediately after she woke from a nightmare, and by the morning, she had inevitably recomposed herself, no sign of the night’s distress visible on her face or in her carriage. Now, though, Ingrid had a close view of the dark smudges under Edelgard’s eyes and her jaw straining taut beneath her skin, could see the way her hands were clenched into fists and her eyes darted back and forth from Ingrid’s face to the shadows that crept in around the edges of the candlelight. All of what had consumed her while she slept was now pushed back beneath the surface of her skin, but it was present yet, not destroyed.

Edelgard sighed nearly inaudibly, before drawing herself up to her full height and nodding, not quite managing to imbue the gesture with the authority it carried in the daylight. “Come inside, if you wish.”

Edelgard’s room was not so different from Ingrid’s own. The basic furnishings were the same; the bed even looked to be the same size. There were a few more books here than could be found in Ingrid’s room, and a chest pushed up against the foot of the bed. The biggest departure was a cloth that had been pinned against the top of the window frame to act as a makeshift curtain. As Edelgard went to light the candle sitting cold and dark on her nightstand, Ingrid regarded that curtain, frowning lightly. Was Edelgard’s sleep really as easily disrupted as all that, not just nightmares, but so sensitive that even a stray beam of light could break it?

“I am sorry to have woken you.” Edelgard put out the match with a quick, sharp wave of her hand. The motion was too precise not to have been practiced, over and over again, and Ingrid wondered under what circumstances someone would have been trained for something like that—if the gesture wasn’t adapted for this, anyways, and had not initially been taught with some other purpose in mind. “Please, close the door behind you; I have no desire to wake any of the others.”

But for what purpose was the gesture initially intended? Ingrid wondered, as she did as she was told. This late at night, fatigue holding her firmly in its grip even if sleep would not touch her, she did not think it strange that she was alone in a room with a princess. If they were in Enbarr, no doubt this would never have been allowed. Even had Ingrid Brandl Galatea, daughter of a new, impoverished house, been considered high enough to be granted an audience with the future emperor, doubtless Edelgard would have been surrounded by ladies-in-waiting and guards at all times, with Hubert no doubt somewhere close by, ready to deal with any problems that arose, no matter what those problems might be. But it was night, darkness lapped at Ingrid’s feet, she was tired, and she did not think about these things. They would come back to her in the morning, and it would be one more thing that had made this night strange. For now, that part of her mind rested in ignorance.

“It is no trouble to me,” Ingrid murmured, face still turned to the door. “I wasn’t likely to sleep much tonight, anyways.” Her rib chose that moment to twinge, as if to remind her of the need for _rest_ , even if she did not sleep. “I just hope I’m not keeping you from your rest…”

She turned to look at Edelgard, and fell silent, her mouth dry.

Edelgard was still bent over the candle, her hand trained over the flame as if trying to draw warmth from its pulsing fire. Her long, loose hair flowed over her left shoulder, taking on a hue of burnished gold that no other light had been able to imbue it with. The light of Edelgard’s candle and Ingrid’s own shone through the fine linen of Edelgard’s nightgown, the shape of her body told in shadow, beneath, every sharp angle and soft curve painted in soft peach-white, tinged with the same gold that fired her hair.

Ingrid’s heart hammered in her chest. After a long moment, she finally managed to tear her eyes away, face burning, blood pulsing hard and hot beneath her skin. She should not be embarrassed. She should not gawp like a child. This was Edelgard’s room, in the middle of the night. This was Edelgard’s room, where Edelgard could reasonably be expected to dress comfortably for bed on a warm night. This was a private place, the wearer might not even be aware of the effect candlelight had on her clothes, and Ingrid ought not gawp like a child or an old matron ready to scold for impropriety. She set her candle down on the nightstand, saying nothing.

(Her blood still pulsed as hard as would a flood diverted through a single, narrow pipe. Ingrid was not sure what would happen first, if she would vomit or faint. Personally, while neither would be most preferable, she was hoping for fainting. As much as it would make her look like one of the more fragile— _useless_ —maidens from the tales, both fainting and vomiting could leave negative impressions on her host, but fainting might leave a less negative impression, if only because it wouldn’t leave a foul, stinking mess to clean up.)

Ingrid knew her face must have been painted scarlet—the heat even touched her eyes, like sitting too close to a fireplace—but either Edelgard had missed it, she thought the candlelight had put that color into her face, or she had simply chosen not to comment. Somehow, Ingrid did not think it had escaped Edelgard’s notice. She was not that lucky.

Edelgard sat down on the edge of her bed, hands not folded neatly in her lap as Ingrid would have expected, but instead braced on the edge of her mattress, fingers digging into the sheets with such force that Ingrid expected to hear cloth tearing under her fingernails. Something was crawling in around the edges of the mask Edelgard made of her face. It had taken root in her eyes, which dragged over Ingrid’s face with a brightness that had little to do with reflected candlelight.

The silence brewing between them grew more charged, more uneasy, until Ingrid drew a ragged breath, laughter almost sickeningly giddy riding on its coattails, and remarked, “Mercedes’s stories aren’t at all what I expected.”

A huffing breath, carrying the ghost of that same sick laughter, escaped Edelgard’s mouth. “No, they are not.”

If Mercedes was here, Ingrid had little doubt that she would have laughed gently at them and asked if Ingrid would have preferred a ‘gory war story’, or if Edelgard would have preferred the darkest of what her own tastes inclined her towards. Something palatable to them, and likely completely unpalatable to her.

It would stay, no doubt, the memory of that tale. Whether or not Ingrid would have dreams of the contents, dreams of fabulous castles and the mouths that waited to devour the unlucky, she did not know. But she knew that it would linger long, like the infections you could pick up at the end of winter when the earth was waking up and the melting snow soaked every dry place and weakened the body to make it easier for sickness to take hold. It would not be a passing thing, to trouble her for a night and then vanish from memory.

_Such tales must haunt the dreams of all unwed noblewomen._ Her experience was not unique. There were others who had been in just the same position she was now in, and they had not complained, not gone to the altar kicking and screaming as their fathers dragged them behind them. They had done their duty for the sake of their family and done it without complaint. Ingrid could find it in herself to be an equal to their strength, surely.

Others had done what she must do. She would not shame their sacrifices by balking. She must not shame their sacrifices. She might never hold Lúin in her hand, but if she was unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to save her family, then it was well enough that her father did not pass the lance to her; she would not have deserved even to look upon it, even wield it. Only those willing to sacrifice could be virtuous enough to deserve the Goddess’s favor.

She would be strong enough, regardless of any dreams she carried with her from that tale.

_Edelgard must face similar pressures_ , Ingrid mused. She doubted that House Hresvelg truly lacked for wealth, but she who would be the future ruler of the Adrestian Empire must no doubt choose her husband with great care. There would be little room for a love match when the emperor must choose a husband who could shore up alliances or neutralize coalitions against her; love must be cultivated after the vows were said, if there was any ground in which it could grow.

No doubt Mercedes’s tale had found fertile ground to root in in Edelgard’s mind. Never mind that she would be the emperor, and higher than every king on the face of the earth, let alone the man who could become her husband. Some things lingered whether they were rational or not. The ivy would creep up over the walls of the mind, carpeting the mind with their fears and cares, and below it there was something that went unnamed and unanswered and unacknowledged, though it would occasionally lift its head and peer out through the ivy and whisper things that Ingrid could not understand.

(She wondered, sometimes, if men who wed women from families so much wealthier and more powerful than their own felt this same skin-itch, bone-deep anxiety. If they felt as if they were going into the wedding naked, with their throat bared to any dagger that might come its way. She had never asked any man such a question; it seemed too much of a dig to their pride as men. But you heard stories, if you listened from behind the right doors. Most of those stories involved the fates of unhappy women, but there were some unhappy men secreted in there, as well. If finances were mishandled, if promised alliances or concessions did not come to pass, well…)

Ingrid could have let it go at that. She had little doubt that such stories as what they had heard tonight were enough to inspire nightmares. That could serve as a cloak, and to keep from insulting the dignity of a princess, she could have let it serve, taken her candle, and gone. She had no idea what was true for Edelgard, but she had observed in the Kingdom that the higher in the nobility someone was, the more defensive they tended to be of their dignity. Of course, there were barons and lords who were just as defensive as dukes, and Grand Duke Rufus didn’t seem to have a single care for his dignity—or the dignity of House Blaiddyd at large—but as a rule, the older and more venerable a house was, the more sensitive they were to any slight upon their honor or dignity. And House Hresvelg, inheritors of the blood of the divine Seiros, was the highest of all.

She could have let it go.

Leaving now seemed cold.

“Are you alright?” she asked gently, her eyes drifting from Edelgard’s white-knuckled hands to her stiff, slightly quivering shoulders.

All at once, the stiffness smoothed itself out of Edelgard’s shoulders, but there was still a visible tremble that Ingrid would not have needed to be eagle-eyed to track. _But there’s no one here to watch you, no one but me. Do you think I would be glib enough to carry this from the room, do you think I would not bury this in my heart where no unfriendly eyes could spy it…_

“It was a dream,” Edelgard answered her, with all the smooth calm of someone who had sent all the tremble to her flesh. “My dreams have no power over the waking world.”

That last sentence was rote, well-trodden words that sounded as if they had been said a thousand times before. Taught to her, or self-taught? Ingrid could not guess, and the distinction did not, as far as she could see, matter at all. Oh, hers was not a body or a mind fashioned for giving comfort, but she could at least _try_ , could she not?

“Do you want to talk about it?”

How many confidantes did an Imperial princess have when ensconced in her own palace in Enbarr? It had never occurred to Ingrid before to wonder. Edelgard was regarding her with both eyebrows raised, a gleam in her eyes that was not quite unfriendliness, but was certainly not relief. Ingrid was wondering now, wondering if Edelgard, daughter of a man who had had most of his power stolen from him by his minsters, was not herself surrounded by the daughters and nieces and young cousins of these men, girls and young women who were spies as much as they were ladies-in-waiting. Not very nice, not very honorable, but it was a royal court, and Ingrid had heard much of royal courts, even if she had never had a post in one: honor had very little to do with anything.

Voice perfectly even, gaze perfectly steady, Edelgard told her, “I think that there is much about it that would make little sense to you.”

“That can be said of anyone’s dreams.” Ingrid would have to strain to the back of her mind for a dream that had ever entirely made sense, and she suspected she’d find those dreams stricken from memory entirely. “If you wish to speak of what did make sense to you, I would be willing to listen.”

It wasn’t until after the words left Ingrid’s mouth that she realized how presumptuous they were. Where had her sense of propriety gone tonight? Why should she be offering herself up as a confidante to the Imperial princess? She, neither wealthy nor the daughter of an old, venerable house. Even if she was an Imperial noblewoman, it was unlikely that she would have been allowed at the royal court in Enbarr; more likely, she would have been just as much a provincial lady there as she was in the Kingdom. Without the Academy to serve its purpose, it was possible that the only time Ingrid would have ever laid eyes on Edelgard would have been during a royal progress that found its way to Ingrid’s family’s territory, or when her family was summoned to Enbarr to pledge fealty to the new Emperor.

But night made the world strange, or else it brought desires hidden from the heart a little closer to the surface. Ingrid didn’t… _How am I supposed to let it go?_ Ingrid couldn’t…

This was presumption. It would be up to Edelgard to decide whether it was the sort of presumption she could tolerate.

Light bobbed around them as the candles flickered, almost in time. Edelgard stared up at her, considering, a fine, sharp line cut into the skin between her eyebrows. Ingrid could not begin to guess what she was looking for in her face—Ingrid tried to be honorable, tried to be steadfast, tried to be true. She tried always to be the sort of person that anyone in the Kingdom would have trusted, be they true of heart. But Edelgard was not from the Kingdom, was she? She was from Enbarr, in the Empire, and Ingrid knew little of her life beyond the facts that she had once had brothers and sisters, once most likely been a political hostage, once had brown hair. Ingrid had no conception of what Edelgard looked for in confidantes, if she looked for a confidante.

“Why do you wish to know?” Edelgard asked at last, her soft voice all but lost to the silence that pervaded the summer night.

“I…” Ingrid swallowed. The heat in her face that had finally gone down was returning; she could only pray that Edelgard would not misinterpret. “I cannot rightly say. But I do think…” She frowned. “…I do think that it helps to talk.” It had never seemed to help Felix. _Maybe that has something to do with the way you keep arguing with him—even if what he says flies in the face of chivalry, and spits in the face of knighthood._ “I think it can help to speak of it. I think that speaking of nightmares can rob them of their power over us.”

Edelgard’s nostrils flared as she breathed hard through her nose. “Would that that were true,” she muttered. “The world would be a very different place. Ingrid,” she said, and after the muttering, a tone of normal volume was such a crack of the whip that Ingrid immediately straightened. Regarding her, Edelgard’s face softened slightly; her tone, as well. “I do not think you would like to hear of my nightmares.” She reached up to smooth a lock of hair that was lying against the grain of the rest. Her hand lingered on her hair, fingers twisting the strands between them. “There are some things we are safer not knowing.”

A retort blistered Ingrid’s lips, and how could it not? She had not been finding much comfort in ignorance, of late; she was still waiting for it to come around for another pass and try to bite her. Knowledge was safer. At least when one had knowledge, one could at least _try_ to formulate a plan to deal with whatever came. But she stopped cold with the first syllable burning her lips.

Ingrid’s eyes had lingered on Edelgard’s hand. She had never seen Edelgard engage in such a gesture during the daylit hours, and it was oddly engrossing to see her doing something so girlish. Edelgard’s sleeve had fallen down her arm, crumpled around her elbow, and now, her pale flesh was illuminated by bobbing golden light.

So Ingrid could hardly fail to notice the slender white ropes of scar tissue littering that same flesh.

She could not at first believe the tale of her eyes, but that was not why she stared. The reality of it took root in her mind soon enough, and still, all she could do was stare.

They were… They were very even. Straight lines running up and down Edelgard’s arm, each scar maybe two inches long and spaced an inch apart, in parallel lines. They had to have been years old, for while they were still visibly raised from her skin, they were not the lurid red of blood, but a white that stood out pale as death against already pale skin. Even on Edelgard’s hand, there were a few scars, smaller than the others, wavy lines rather than straight. And in between the lines were scattered a few round scars, almost like smallpox scars, though Ingrid couldn’t quite make herself believe that; there would have been tales of it on Edelgard’s face and neck.

_How…_

Ingrid’s heart hammered in her chest, bitter and painful and sick. Edelgard regarded her in silence for a long moment, before lowering her arm back down to her lap, and smoothing her sleeve back down to a wrist bisected by a bone-white scar.

“Are there?” Ingrid asked, and did not recognize her voice at all.

“Yes,” and Edelgard’s voice was as the whisper of night, warning against peering into shadows without source, “there are.”

She murmured for Ingrid to leave, and Ingrid, mind still trapped on sight-memory, memory of flesh and scars and phantoms of agony, retrieved her candle and made for the door. Her legs were made of lead, her legs were moving, it felt like, of their own accord, her legs were carrying her inexorably towards the door. She could have believed herself under some sort of spell, but that would have been giving herself entirely too much credit.

Behind her, Edelgard rose from her bed, and blew out her candle, drowning the room in darkness.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : Internalized homophobia; description of societal homophobia; Ingrid’s distinct unease with her parents’ attempts to force her to conform to feminine socialization; references to massacres involving the murder of children]

It was with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension that Ingrid entered Dorothea’s room the following day, once classes were done and she had visited Professor Manuela for another healing session. Dorothea’s invitation had not been entirely unexpected. On top of the conversation they had had the night before on the way to the cathedral, it was common for the more sociable students to invite friends into their rooms, especially students of common birth, who had not been raised to regard their bedchambers as an extremely private place and the solar a more appropriate location for meetings.

They were friends, Ingrid felt. Maybe not especially close friends, but friendly enough that, in a place where it wouldn’t have been considered inappropriate to meet with someone in the room where they slept, Ingrid saw nothing wrong with following Dorothea into Dorothea’s room.

And there were no solars around here, anyways.

“Here it is,” Dorothea announced, smiling crookedly with fondness and exasperation glimmering in her eyes, “my home away from home. I’ll admit, it’s not much of a boudoir, but it _is_ much better lit than my old room in the opera house.”

“It’s lovely,” Ingrid told her, and though the arrangement of the room was not personally to her tastes, she meant it.

Dorothea kept her room very clean, the furniture spotless and the floors gleaming. A faint smell pervaded the room, bright and sweet and astringent—was there a sachet secreted away somewhere? A large, ornate wooden box sat on the nightstand, joined by a row of little glass perfume bottles, all of them somewhere between half and three-quarters full, with pink and clear and golden liquids inside. The bedsheets were overlaid with a thick, plush blanket of soft purple wool; two pillows with cases colored vivid violet and bright silver sat proudly amongst the standard pillows issued by the monastery. Pinned up on the wall were several posters. Ingrid wasn’t certain at first just what they depicted, but when she spotted a poster depicting what looked very much like Professor Manuela in a costume similar to some of the few Church-sanctioned depictions of Saint Seiros, Ingrid thought she could at least imagine where the posters had come from. Again, it was not how Ingrid would have decorated her own room—had it been allowed, Ingrid would have hung a lance over the threshold—but the way Dorothea had done it, the room was very well put together.

Dorothea laughed airily, but the look that had now warmed her eyes was undeniably pleased. “I do my best. An undecorated room is a pretty depressing room. Now, as to why I asked you over…” Dorothea began to rummage around in her nightstand, humming under her breath. “I suppose you’ve heard by now that we’re holding a play in the cathedral in a few weeks.”

Ingrid watched her hunched back, frowning in bemusement. “Yes, I have; I heard someone talking about it this morning. I have wondered how you obtained permission for that; I can’t imagine the Church was eager to allow a crowd into the grounds, considering everything that’s happening.”

It might not be the easiest thing to get your hands on information from outside the confines of Garreg Mach, but news flew within the walls as if carried on a pegasus’s wings; Dorothea had once remarked that the gossip circuit in the monastery worked even faster than the one in Enbarr. News had flown up of an incident in one of the marketplaces in the town down below. Just this morning, the guards had apprehended a priest associated with the Western Church. That priest had been carrying vials of poison on his person, and an assortment of knives meant for the dining table—also poisoned, of course. Of course. Letting strangers into the cathedral seemed like the _last_ thing that Lady Rhea, Seteth, or any of the other officials would want.

“It’s important to stay positive during times like these,” Dorothea replied with a shrug. “The Church understands that—well, Manuela might have helped me convince them. And the play isn’t going to be until a few weeks after the Goddess’s Rite of Rebirth, anyways; trust me, I don’t want to try competing with _that_.”

“Alright, so what do you want _me_ to do? I warn you, I can sing a hymn in a crowd, but you wouldn’t like the way I sound when I sing without anyone else to drown out my voice.”

More sounds of items being displaced in the nightstand drawer reached Ingrid’s ears. That smell she had picked up on before, bright and sweet and astringent, was a little stronger now. “And the fact that you’re willing to admit it means that you’d probably be better than some of our cast members; none of them have the _slightest_ self-awareness of what their voices sound like.” Dorothea straightened and turned back around, smiling just a little too brightly for Ingrid’s liking—it put her in mind of a highly-polished dagger blade hiding behind two rows of teeth. She was holding a wooden box in her hands, a smaller sibling to the specimen that sat out on her nightstand. “No, Ingrid, I wasn’t going to ask you to come sing with us. The cast is full, we have understudies on standby, and I personally think it’s better to only cast people who actively sought it out. What I’m concerned about is making sure you look your best when you’re attending.”

Ingrid eyed the box held in Dorothea’s hands warily. She could not help but mark that she had never said whether or not she’d be attending the play. “I... I will make certain I have bathed before going to the cathedral, and that my clothes are clean. I will not mar the performance by showing up still dirty.”

Alas, Dorothea shook her head, chuckling. “That’s not what I meant, Ingrid—thank you, but I didn’t seriously think you’d show up to the play without having cleaned up first. Have you…” Never taking her eyes off of Ingrid’s face, she popped the box’s lid open, smile widening to a nearly feral grin, if someone as well-put-together as Dorothea could ever be called ‘feral.’ That dagger blade Ingrid had noticed? Turned out to be the head of an axe. “…Ever worn makeup before?”

Ah. Cosmetics. And here, Ingrid had thought that box would be full of jewelry, or hair ribbons, or the sort of hairpins that pinched and pricked your scalp every time you moved your head. Oh, to be so lucky.

“No, I haven’t.” She was a guest in this room. This place was a stand-in for Dorothea’s home, Ingrid was a guest, and never let it be said that Ingrid Brandl Galatea was some heedless heathen with no care for the demands of hospitality. Never let it be said either that she was craven enough to back out of the room and run after taking a look at that box full of cosmetics. “I… have never had much need for it.”

There were _others_ who had seen a need for it, but Ingrid had ignored them until they forced the issue, and then put her foot down as she rarely did, and _damn_ the guilt doing so ignited within her.

“No, I don’t suppose you’d have _too much_ need for it,” Dorothea agreed, lips pursed. Sighing mournfully, she added, “Oh, to have skin like yours. I’d never wear rouge again.”

Ingrid thought her face might turn the color of rouge as she folded her arms closely around her chest. (Her healing rib lodged a protest; it was ignored.) “What does that mean? My skin is just like everyone else’s.”

Dorothea frowned lightly, and though Ingrid did not think the expression entirely serious, she still felt her color darkening even further. “Really, now? And tell me, Ingrid, have you ever had so much as a single pimple in your entire life?”

“I have had three,” and not until the words were out of her mouth and Dorothea’s finely plucked eyebrows were arching meaningfully, did Ingrid remember that her experience was not exactly considered typical.

“You’ve had… three pimples.” Dorothea’s eyebrows arched a little higher. “In your whole, entire life.” And a little higher. “ _You_. After sweating buckets nearly every day training, you’re telling me that you have only had _three pimples_ in your whole life?”

Though Ingrid had the distinct impression that she was only digging herself even deeper, she nodded her head.

At that, it seemed that even Dorothea had to take a moment to stop and stare, but she recovered quickly enough—the result of her training, no doubt. “I don’t know too many women who can claim the same, Ingrid. And just think: you could look even better with makeup on!”

“I wouldn’t,” Ingrid retorted, folding her arms even tighter across her chest (And ignoring the second yelp of protest from her rib). “I’d just look gawky and uncomfortable, and there’s nothing attractive about that.”

That would be the argument she had used against her mother when her mother had, about a year ago, attempted to get Ingrid into a dress that exposed rather more of her chest than she was comfortable with, in time for a potential suitor to visit them in their ancestral keep. Mother had said it was the court fashion that summer, and Ingrid hadn’t budged; everyone knew court fashions were fickle and fleeting, and that the fashion in Fhirdiad would stick out like a sore thumb all the way in Galatea territory, even Ingrid. It would make Ingrid look more like a grown-up lady, Mother said, and Ingrid hadn’t budged; the man might look at her and think her whatever Mother thought a grown-up lady was supposed to be, but if he actually married her, he’d discover his bride to be nothing like that first impression, and would likely be unhappy. She would look _prettier_ , Mother had insisted, and here was where Ingrid really had to put her foot down: she had never worn such a low-cut dress in her life, was uncomfortable with the idea, and surely that discomfort would find its way into her carriage, and there was _nothing_ attractive about someone who looked as close to crawling out of their skin as Ingrid would no doubt look after five minutes in that dress.

The result had pleased no one. Mother’s lips had pinched her cheeks as she flatly informed Ingrid that the dress had been dear-bought and that if she wished to spurn dear-bought gifts, then of _course_ she could wear one of the dresses from her wardrobe. When Ingrid asked how much, exactly, the dress had cost, Mother had only raised one eyebrow and withdrawn from the chamber, leaving said dear-bought dress lying out on Ingrid’s bed. Ingrid had indeed worn one of the dresses from her wardrobe, angry and guilty—and resolute. Mother stared, thin-lipped, at her the whole time, and when the potential suitor left with no offer forthcoming, both of her parents had fixed Ingrid in such reproachful stares that it was all that Ingrid could do to ignore that they hadn’t actually _said_ anything about the dress.

(The dress had been hanging in Ingrid’s wardrobe ever since, pushed to the far left-hand side where it would be difficult to happen upon it by accident. It was a lustrous azure blue silk, embroidered along the skirt and sleeve hems and plunging neckline with green-leafed white roses, and Ingrid knew she would have been completely ridiculous in it. No one would have mistaken her for a tale’s idea of a lady, and even if she’d had any inclination to try to pretend that day, the sleeves would have sat wrong over her muscles and given the game away. She still felt a pang twist her stomach when she laid eyes on it, and tried always to push it off further to the left, though no further would it go.)

“If you practice with it, you’ll be more comfortable wearing makeup.”

Ingrid pressed her lips tightly against each other. “I don’t want to wear cosmetics every day.” Or any day, for that matter. “It would be a hassle to deal with, and they’re too expensive to replace on a regular basis.”

‘Too expensive…’ Ingrid could see Dorothea mouthing, almost bewildered. Ingrid would have thought it obvious, from how shabby the clothes she had brought home were in comparison to Felix and Sylvain’s. And that was only in comparison to _them_. When you held Ingrid’s casual clothing up against the like of Lorenz or Hilda’s, Ingrid’s seemed only a few steps away from being rags; Ingrid would have thought that immediately obvious. Apparently not.

Ever the quick-reacting performer, Dorothea recovered quickly enough. “Okay, that’s fine, Ingrid. Even I don’t wear makeup on training days; who wants it running down their neck? But wouldn’t you _like_ to get a little dolled up for a special night?” she pled, setting her eyes wide and almost doe-like.

Whatever effect Dorothea was trying to go with, it was lost in the wake of that word falling from her lips: ‘doll.’ Ingrid’s stomach cramped painfully, her lungs aching for lack of air, and once again, she had to remind herself: she was a guest here, and there were _rules_.

Only one night. She would only go out with it all plastered over her face for one night. She did not have to spend every day for the rest of the school year wearing it, let alone the rest of her _life_.

Just one night.

_Doll…_

On an exhale, “Fine. But I’ll only wear cosmetics around the monastery on the night of the play. This is _not_ going to become a daily occurrence.”

But given how Dorothea’s eyes lit up, either she hadn’t quite understood Ingrid’s meaning, or she was deriving something entirely different from this than Ingrid had thought. “Splendid! We can practice with it right now. Here—“ she reached out her hand and turned her chair towards the light “—sit down, and I’ll try something out.”

Ingrid knew she would regret this. But refusing would make her a poor friend, and a poor guest. She sighed. “Very well,” and sat down in the chair.

Never had Ingrid had much experience of attendants poring over her, attending to her appearance. Dresses worn by noblewomen in the Kingdom were… Well, they were not the simplest things in the world, and some of the gowns worn by the highest-ranking ladies of the royal court while Queen Patricia was still alive were complicated enough that Ingrid had no doubt that those ladies had needed attendants to help them into their gowns. But dresses not meant for use in the royal court, especially those worn by women who did not hail from wealthy houses, were simpler affairs. Ingrid had never met a dress she couldn’t get into on her own. Even that blue silk dress that, if worn, would have made her a spectacle of her, Ingrid would likely have been able to get into on her own, even if it would have taken a little longer than her more well-worn dresses. Kingdom clothes, _good_ Kingdom clothes, were designed first and foremost with utility in mind. They had to be something that could keep out the cold effectively, something that could be thrown on quickly in the dark if the owner needed to be somewhere else in a hurry.

Likewise, Ingrid had never, once she was old enough to do these things herself, had an attendant to help her bathe or dress her hair. Perhaps wealthier ladies enjoyed such luxuries, but whatever money the Galatea family had was better spent elsewhere than on the upkeep of an attendant who did not provide any service others could provide for themselves.

So, suffice to say that she was unused to this. Ingrid could list on one hand the number of people who had ever pored over her for reasons other than illness or injury the way Dorothea was poring over her now; two of them had been her parents, and another had been her paternal grandmother. Servants did not draw close to her. Her older brothers were so much older that they kept each other’s company more readily than they kept hers; her younger brother was yet a small child, and too young for he and Ingrid to really be bosom friends. Felix and Dimitri and Sylvain would draw close to other men, clap shoulders, throw arms around shoulders (well, Felix didn’t do that) and touch casually (again, if rather less so when it came to Felix) when it was other men, but they just didn’t with her. She couldn’t remember when they had stopped really touching her; she just knew that they didn’t, anymore.

Now, there was someone that close to her again, someone who touched her freely and casually, and she might have enjoyed it, had the circumstances been different. Dorothea was brushing some sort of fawn-colored, unpleasant-smelling powder onto Ingrid’s skin. The bristles of the brush kept prickling her cheeks, the skin on her face no longer feeling as though it fit quite as it should. She was not certain that… No, she was certain. This was not pleasant.

“So, what is the play about?” Ingrid asked, in an attempt to distract herself from the smell of the powder and the feeling of it caking her skin. “I don’t think anyone has said.”

“Try not to move your head too much,” Dorothea murmured, “I need you to stay still so I don’t mess anything up.” Nearly trilling, she went on, “Oh, the play isn’t anything too complicated; I think there must be a thousand different versions of that sort of story out there by now. It’s about a beautiful princess who falls in love with a handsome commoner. She knows she could never be happy with anyone else, but she must marry another for the good of her kingdom.”

Yes, Ingrid had heard a thousand different versions of this tale, and unless a specific twist came attached, those stories rarely ended happily. “Does this commoner turn out to be a long-lost prince, or a duke, or something similar?”

“Oh, no. This man is a genuine commoner; he is the real deal.”

And Ingrid knew how those stories tended to end when they had been composed by someone who was not thinking of a woman’s obligations and the consequences of not fulfilling them. Without much enthusiasm, “And true love conquers all?”

With much greater enthusiasm, “True love conquers all.”

Dorothea muttered then for Ingrid to sit very still, kept telling her when to breathe out of her nose and when to breathe out of her mouth. But Ingrid, oh, the more it went on like this, the harder her heart beat against her ribs, the more her stomach churned, the more her muscles screamed for activity. (It was impossible now to distinguish the protests of her rib from the rest of it.) _Give it long enough, and I might never rise from this chair again, except when toted around by someone excited to show me off_.

“What will happen to the princess’s kingdom if she does not marry her betrothed as her duty dictates?” Speech was how she could stay grounded. Speech was the proof of her continued humanity.

An application of crimson-pink rouge, smelling greasily of animal fat, was accompanied by a click of the tongue. “That’s not the point, Ingrid. Why should the princess alone have to sacrifice her happiness? Why should she alone bear the burden of forsaking happiness, for the sake of other people who wouldn’t sacrifice anything even if they were asked to?”

Lodged in Ingrid’s throat was something that didn’t quite feel like a scream, didn’t quite feel like a wail, didn’t quite feel like a howl. It was… It was the tone of it that she thought bothered her the most, how casually Dorothea had said it, as if of _course_ it was true, of _course_ it was the easiest thing in the world to just drop all of your obligations and let your family starve when they were _counting on you_ to help bring them to some level of safety, of course…

Ingrid thought she might have been projecting a little. And she was still a guest. She quieted the thoughts as best she could (which wasn’t very much), and turned her attention back to the task at hand.

Admittedly, that wasn’t much more pleasant.

 _Will my eyes turn to glass?_ etched itself into her mind as Dorothea bade her hold _very_ still so that she could paint kohl onto her eyelashes. _Will my arms turn to porcelain, my belly to stuffing? Maybe stone instead? Maybe the material will be bone, dry bone that will crumble if I am hauled around too much and handled too roughly. Maybe—_

The impulse that took root now in her mind, distinct from all the ivy, unable to be buried beneath, floating and never sinking, was the impulse to rip her skin away from her face. All at once, not piecemeal; whatever that powder that had been caked on her face was, it would serve as just as good a seam as any. Gory and ghastly as what waited under her skin would have been, it would have at least been her. She would at least have recognized it.

Would she recognize this? she wondered, as Dorothea dabbed rouge on Ingrid’s lips, pulling her lower lip out slowly with the applicator. Would she recognize this at all, or would it have been the face of a stranger plastered onto her own?

She’d soon find out.

“I’m done,” Dorothea announced, more as if to a wide audience than to Ingrid all alone. “I think you’ll like the way it looks; I didn’t want to try anything too heavy, since your face doesn’t need that much improvement.”

_‘Didn’t want to try anything too heavy?!’ I feel as if you’ve put an iron mask over my head!_

“May I see it?” Ingrid asked instead, and though her eyes had not yet turned to glass, her voice seemed to have gotten a head start. It sounded brittle and jagged, as if her _tongue_ had gone to glass first and bits of it had broken off and were rolling around in her throat.

“Don’t be a goose; of course you can see it. I can’t know what your tastes are until I know how you like what I’ve done.”

There was a flash of light like the sun on water, but it was just the light catching on the polished face of an ornate copper hand mirror. Dorothea passed it to Ingrid, the handle warm under warmer fingers, and Ingrid had the first sight of her face, embellished with rouge and kohl and whatever that powder had been.

There had been ladies at court wearing cosmetics the last time Ingrid had visited. Truth be told, she paid little mind to the finer points of court fashion, but it was difficult not to notice coal-black eyelashes on a fair-haired women, difficult not to notice just how red some women’s lips were when Ingrid knew that for the vast majority, the natural shade was pink. A court mage, Lady Cornelia, went around with so many pounds of whitener slathered on her skin that Ingrid was _still_ wondering how it was that her neck hadn’t snapped under the weight, and it had been years since Ingrid had last so much as laid eyes on that woman.

Thanks to her experiences at court, Ingrid knew something of what a face looked like when it was painted with cosmetics. But she had never in her life given thought to what her own might look like. Cosmetics were expensive enough that her parents had only raised the subject with her once or twice, and had never bought a kit and tried to force them on her. The most they’d done was press her to wear perfume to a meal with the latest potential suitor present when she was fifteen, and that had gone so poorly that they had never made her wear it again.

At first, the differences were not so pronounced as all that; later, Ingrid would think that the colors being distorted somewhat by the copper surface she stared into might have had something to do with that. The shade of the powder was not so far off from Ingrid’s skin tone as she might have expected just from seeing it in its jar, and the red in her cheeks and her lips wasn’t so far off from their tone when chapped from the cold and the unforgiving winds of winter.

But the blackness of her normally sandy eyelashes could only be marked unnatural, and the beaten copper soon showed her the rest of that unnaturalness in stark detail. The shine on the tip of her nose was gone, and the line of her cheekbones had been rendered invisible. The more Ingrid looked, the more her face fell apart in the painted-on mask the cosmetics had made of her features, everything lost to caricature.

She didn’t know who was staring back at her from the copper. It certainly wasn’t her.

“No,” Ingrid muttered, in the absence of any other word her mouth was willing to form. “No, no, no.” She made a beeline straight for Dorothea’s basin, not bothering to check if there was anything in it or if, indeed, there was even water in it before dunking her face right in. The gentle cool of the water soothed her somewhat, but none of the cosmetics were coming off of her face as quickly as she had hoped.

A loud, scandalized noise sounded behind her. “You could at least tell me what you didn’t like before you do something like that!”

It would have taken all day to list all the things that Ingrid hadn’t _liked_ , and she didn’t have that kind of time, and didn’t think Dorothea did, either. Somehow, Ingrid didn’t think Dorothea wanted the full litany of things she didn’t _like_ , as the laughter of a boy who had blithely watched a knight be carried off the tourney field covered in blood rang in her ears like the tolling of the bell that rang the hours in this place. Where, just where, was she to start?

While Ingrid was sucking in a few gasping breaths and wracking her mind trying to figure out just what to say to explain herself, Dorothea had come around to bow her head and get a better look at Ingrid’s face. “Oh, dear.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice that Ingrid might have answered with something decidedly _not_ laughter if she was not still trying to figure out just what she was supposed to say. “Your face isn’t _quite_ clean, Ingrid.”

Somehow, Ingrid would be surprised if that was even the half of it. She knew how little of the compounds that had been smeared on her face had come off in the water, and just what that would mean for her face now; she needed no mirror to tell her a tale of the ghastly countenance that was hers (And yet, for letting at least some of her skin shine through, would look more like herself than when the false face was intact).

“What didn’t you like?” Dorothea asked, exasperation and gentleness commingled into something confused and confusing. “Was there too much kohl?”

Ingrid shook her head. Words that had earlier bounced around in her head with no rhyme or reason were beginning to coalesce into intelligible sentences. “All of it,” she muttered, water dripping from her lips like tears. “It’s just… It’s not…” She was losing the train of her words again. Reaching out with desperate hands to hold it fast, she wondered, thoughts colored with almost laughing despair, if coherent thoughts put to words would even sound comprehensible to Dorothea’s ears.

Only one way to find out.

“All of it?” Dorothea echoed, before Ingrid could essay an attempt at a coherent explanation. “That doesn’t narrow it down very much.”

No, it wouldn’t, would it? She was being ridiculous. She wasn’t a child, to throw a tantrum because she had been made to do something personally disagreeable to her. She needed to give an explanation, something that wouldn’t make her look or sound like a child.

All she could think to say was the truth.

“I…” No, she couldn’t bring her parents into this. They weren’t here to defend themselves. It wouldn’t have been fair. “There have been attempts made to make me look…” The word fell like a lump of trash from her mouth. “…Prettier. Something to make me more appealing to my potential suitors. I could never show myself to them as I was—“ Glenn had taken her as she was, Glenn had looked at her, warts and all, and accepted her, and then everyone who came after him had expected her to swallow herself and regurgitate a false, shallow image in her place “—and was prescribed an image to show them, instead. But the image wasn’t me. It’s not me; it has never been me. If I became that image, I would not be a person anymore. I would just be a doll, to be set out on a display when someone wanted to buy me, and put away again when the buyer left without making a purchase.”

That was… No, that wasn’t right. But the word—‘buy’—would not leave, instead sitting crowned with ivy in her mind, leering out at her with over-bright, over-knowing eyes. _That’s not right, that’s not—_

“It’s strange,” she said slowly, “How I only think of these things when I’m here.”

Dorothea, who had been silent while she spoke, just watching Ingrid while her head was still bowed over the basin, shoulders still hunched and hands still braced on the edge of the nightstand, now spoke. An indecipherable quality in her voice, she asked, deceptively lightly, “Is that all?”

Water dripping still from unnaturally reddened lips, Ingrid laughed weakly. “The rouge smells awful.”

The laugh that greeted Ingrid’s ears was a little stronger than what had fallen from her own lips. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? I can’t afford compounds that smell any better than this. You _might_ have noticed that I always wear perfume when I wear makeup?”

Ingrid shook her head, wet hair slapping her cheeks with a dull slosh. “I wore perfume once—“ she pointed a finger up towards the ceiling “—just once. My neck broke out in hives.”

Another laugh, brighter now. “Let’s not do that, then. Here.” A small towel, held in a long, immaculately-manicured hand, entered Ingrid’s field of vision from the right. “Rinse off your face a little more, and then dry off. I have an oil you’ll need to get the rouge off, and your skin needs to be dry, or it won’t work like it should.”

At Dorothea’s bidding, Ingrid sat down in the chair once dry. She tried to take the bottle of oil out of Dorothea’s hand, but a sharp glare and a few scolding words stayed her: this oil was expensive, Ingrid had never used it before, and if she applied too much of it to her skin, her skin would dry out and burn. Suitably chastened, Ingrid sat still, and let Dorothea go about her work.

Either because it was an ingredient, or because it had been determined that an infusion was needed to mask some truly horrific odor, the oil was bright with the smell of lavender. It filled the air, drowning out the sachet hidden somewhere in the nightstand. Dorothea started first with her lips, murmuring for Ingrid to keep her mouth open and her tongue away from her lips as she swiped oil first over the upper lip, then the lower. The proximity was… here was something else to make Ingrid feel as if her skin didn’t fit correctly. What filled the room filled Ingrid’s nostrils, was not enough to calm her completely, but soothed her somewhat, nonetheless.

Enough to let her see the full scope of how ridiculous she had been.

“I must apologize,” she muttered, once Dorothea declared the matter finished and Ingrid had full use of her mouth returned to her. “I have hardly been anyone would call the ideal guest.”

Dorothea waved a dismissive hand, the light flashing off of the dull, deep red-brown beads (jasper?) strung into a bracelet on her wrist. “Don’t worry about it. We both learned something here. _I_ learned not to try to put makeup on you—and that I should probably consider anyone trying to spray perfume on you in a shop an assassin in disguise.”

“I think you may be the only person besides my parents, my brothers, and my granny who knows what it does to my skin.”

“All the more reason to suppose they’re an assassin!” Dorothea let fly jauntily, heedless—perhaps intentionally so—of how little sense that made. She turned from Ingrid to put all of her materials away, grumbling under her breath as she fought to get it all back in the drawer. When she returned her gaze to Ingrid, there was an odd, considering look in her eyes, pinning Ingrid to where she sat.

It was one thing to contend with this stare. It was another thing entirely to do so when no speech accompanied it. Ingrid lasted as long as she could, until finally she could take no more, and ventured, “What is it?”

“Hmm?” Dorothea blinked rapidly, her green eyes clearing as if a film had been removed from them. “Oh, it’s nothing much. There was just another reason I had thought you might like to get a little fancy for the play.”

Currently, Ingrid was trying to decide if that hint of sharp-edged steel had returned to glint so bright and ominous behind the wall of Dorothea’s teeth. She couldn’t tell, just like she couldn’t tell if knowledge would have been enough to change her response, a cagy, “And what is that?”

Dorothea winked, not at all an encouraging sign, in Ingrid’s estimation. “Are you sure you don’t already know?” That sing-song cadence nesting once more in her voice was no more encouraging.

Technically, Ingrid supposed she could have considered the conversation done. Technically, she could have stood, bowed slightly, thanked Dorothea for the invitation, and then gone on her way, letting Dorothea suppose anything she liked from Ingrid’s unissued answer. But Ingrid, oh, Ingrid, just _could not let it go_. “I… don’t, actually.”

“Don’t play dumb, Ingrid.” Sing-song had turned knowing, cajoling, as Dorothea wagged a finger, mock-scolding. “It doesn’t suit you at all. Do you really think I haven’t seen the way you look at Edie?”

All at once, the air fled the room, or perhaps just Ingrid’s lungs—the distinction mattered little, when the result was the same and it set Ingrid’s head spinning. “I don’t see that I look at Edelgard any differently than I do at our other classmates.”

“Is that _really_ true, though?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ingrid insisted, just a little too vehemently.

Dorothea laughed, pleasant and musical and just a little venomous, though that could have been the lie of Ingrid’s ears. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Ingrid told her, firm in place of vehement, a marked improvement.

She admired Edelgard. That much, Ingrid would have acknowledged without reservation. What wasn’t to admire? A composed, refined Imperial princess, studious and intelligent and commanding, just as much a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield as in the classroom. (And if it occurred to Ingrid that she had seen Edelgard in neither place, she kept that occurrence well-hidden.) Everything about Edelgard was eminently admirable, from her carriage to the neatness of her clothing to her deep, rich voice to the calm, quick glance of her piercing lavender eyes. But what Dorothea was suggesting…

They didn’t, you know. Women did not do such things with women. Men did with men—it was a polite fiction that they did not, and all the tales were wont to gloss over it, use flowery euphemisms about _deep friendships_ and _brotherhood_ and _unbreakable bonds_ , but Ingrid was not a child to believe those euphemisms. Ingrid was not a child to be shocked by such things, and she knew where warring and questing knights turned when they were separated from more peaceable society for months on end. She knew even where they continued to turn once they returned to more peaceable society and the wives who awaited them there. These things happen. As little as Ingrid would have loved a husband who strayed from her bed to another’s, these things happened, and it would be another thing she must accept in her husband, if need be.

But a woman was for her husband alone, dalliances with women just as unforgivable as dalliances with men. Women were for men, and Ingrid was for whoever her father chose for her. She could contemplate nothing else.

Edelgard, too, was for whomever her husband turned out to be. As pertains to what Dorothea had suggested, Edelgard would likely have been offended by the entire notion.

Just as Ingrid should have been offended.

(Outline of a body, painted in shadow and gilded with gold, now stamped on her memory. Even, so very even scars running in parallel lines down her arm, now stitched into the fabric of her mind. _She used to have brown hair. She used to have brothers and sisters. She used to—_ )

Ingrid excused herself, never breathing a word of offense.

-

Of all the things Ingrid would have expected of the Western Church’s planned attack, she wouldn’t have expected it to occur on the very day of the Goddess’s Rite of Rebirth. If that hadn’t been part of the intelligence passed around the student body of the Officers Academy, she doubted she would have believed it; it was just too brazen to be believed from a force that had already been so badly wounded by its foe, and yet…

Well, the attack being planned for the day or the Rite had seemed far-fetched enough, but they had all run on the assumption that the intelligence was good. Of all the things Ingrid would have expected, never in a thousand years would she have guessed that the Western Church would strike at the very heart of the monastery, on the one and only day of the year when it could be expected to be filled with pilgrims, some no doubt armed and all no doubt incensed by the desecration planned. And yet…

The people of this world were determined to act in ways that Ingrid did not expect, especially the wicked.

First warning had come when a chorus of screams erupted as one of the ocean’s waves from the direction of the cathedral. Ingrid had been guarding the stables against any attempt to steal or injure the horses and pegasi. (There were guards posted near the caves where the wyverns roosted, but they were there more to prevent injury to the beasts than anything else. Wyvern theft was a problem that tended to be, ahem, _self-resolving_ , especially when it came to nesting females or the _really_ cantankerous old ones.) One moment, she was petting a roan mare, and the next, all the horses and pegasi were tossing their heads and stamping their hooves, whinnying, eyes bright with the force of their alarm, as the distant screams sounded.

At first, Ingrid couldn’t determine exactly where they were coming from, though that ignorance did absolutely nothing to quell the desperate need to take up arms against the source of the screams—she could guess, all too clearly, at just what that source _was_ , even if she didn’t know where it came from. But as he screaming went on and Ingrid managed to orient herself, she realized where it was coming _from_.

And, not stopping to think about her post until much later on, she ran.

Ingrid wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been thinking about her post; as she ran, it seemed like every student, guard, and knight was converging on the cathedral. By the time they reached the bridge, there was a swarm of them, and Ingrid had not run quite fast enough to get out at the head of the group and avoid being trapped in a roiling sea of bodies. That there were people fleeing from the cathedral did not help matters. There had honestly been a few moments, sweat running down the back of Ingrid’s neck and pulse raised nearly to the surface of her skin, when Ingrid had feared that the stones of the bridge might give way under all their feet and send them plummeting into the gorge.

As it happened, the bridge had not collapsed; as with nearly every part of Garreg Mach, it was made of sterner stuff than other buildings that Ingrid had known, and proved its mettle today. While people were determined to surprise, the stones beneath her feet would be reliable for as long as they could. It took Ingrid an inordinate amount of time to cross those stones to reach the cathedral, and by that time, it was nearly all over.

Ingrid passed the great oaken doors of the cathedral just in time to see Catherine leading a contingent of knights into the Holy Mausoleum. The last knight in the line had pulled the doors laboriously shut behind him, as clear a signal as Ingrid was likely to receive. She sat down in one of the pews closest to that door and waited, hand clenched tight around the shaft of her lance, waiting. All was silent in the Holy Mausoleum, but those doors were so thick that it seemed entirely likely that even if everyone had been screaming at the top of their lungs, Ingrid would have mistaken it for the call of the wind from the outside.

Several minutes passed, just like that. Then, the doors were pressed open just as laboriously as they had been shut. A long train of men and women, hands bound behind them with rope, all of them lashed to each other by rope tied loosely—but not _too_ loosely—around their necks, emerged from behind the door. ‘Nooses’ rose irresistibly to the front of Ingrid’s mind, and as they were marched past and Ingrid got a closer look at their robes, there could be no mistaking their identities. Ingrid had attended church services in the west of Faerghus once or twice. She recognized the raiment of the Western Church.

At length, Catherine emerged from the mausoleum, speaking in an undertone with Professor Melusine, their heads inclined towards each other. In Professor Melusine’s arms, she held a sword of singular appearance—a longsword tawny in shade, with a segmented blade, and a circular hole in the pommel.

When Ingrid stared at the sword, she felt very much as if she ought to have known it. The small voice of recognition was trying to assert itself in the back of her mind. But try as she might, she just could not place that sword at all.

She would not labor in ignorance for long, thanks to the swift wings on which gossip flew within the walls of Garreg Mach.

The Officers Academy’s youngest, newest, most mysterious professor—and here, the mystery only deepened—could wield the power of the Sword of the Creator.

The residents of the monastery could talk of nothing else for the next several days, and Ingrid was no different. Ingrid had heard that Professor Melusine bore an unknown Crest—with Professor Hanneman for a teacher, she could never have _avoided_ that particular tidbit of information. Professor Melusine bore a Crest that even Professor Hanneman could not at first identify. Overheard conversations had revealed to Ingrid that Professor Melusine’s Crest granted her increased vitality and faster wound healing when in the thick of battle, but for months, no progress had been made on identifying this Crest.

The idea of lost Crests appealed to Ingrid from the perspective of someone who enjoyed stories about such things. How they had been lost, and where they had originated from, that titillated the imagination, and Ingrid didn’t even have a special love of mystery stories in particular. But the mystery was nothing to the reality, once revealed.

The Crest of Flames. That was what it was, a king among lost Crests. It seemed too ridiculous to be believed, and yet, there Professor Melusine was, safely wielding the Sword of the Creator.

As likely anyone could have predicted, Professor Hanneman was over the moon with this revelation. He had been trying to hold lectures as normal in the Blue Lions’ classroom, but it was obvious his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t go on nearly as many tangents as normal, and there were moments when Ingrid watched him visibly struggling to orient his attention on the lesson, which _never_ normally happened. Neither did he stay in the classroom after the lecture to answer further questions as normal, instead vacating the room as soon as possible to return to his office. Once or twice, Ingrid thought she’d seen him _skipping_.

It was hardly inconsequential to _Ingrid_. Nemesis had gone down in infamy, but he had once been the greatest of all earthly kings, blessed by the Goddess above all others. How many tales of his exploits would have survived the years, had Fódlan not been locked in such upheaval over the centuries as to create three territories out of one? As it was, they were left with only fragments, and even those were fit to grab the imagination and hold it fast.

Nemesis, the King of Liberation, who fought off a whole invasion nearly by himself. The Sword of the Creator, which in Nemesis’s hands cleaved a mountain in twain. The Crest of Flames, the greatest of all blessings bestowed by the Goddess upon sinful mankind, believed lost to history, as the only man to ever bear it had no children of his own to carry his legacy down through the years.

And this young woman who had come to the monastery seemingly by chance just happened to bear the Crest. Just happened to be able to wield the sword. Just happened to carry this sign of divine favor within her body.

Ingrid had marked Professor Melusine before as an interesting woman. Now, it was clear she hadn’t known the half of it. Professor Melusine was someone to watch closely, _very_ closely, in the days to come. It made her wish, more than ever, that there was a way for her to stay here after the year had surrendered itself to the next. Ingrid would have liked the opportunity to spend more time learning from Professor Melusine. And maybe, she was uncertain, but maybe she would have liked the opportunity to learn different things from her than she had.

In the uproar created by the revelation of the new professor’s Crest, Ingrid hadn’t heard very much about the classes’ missions for the Verdant Rain Moon. It had taken Professor Hanneman nearly a week into the new month to remember to tell the Blue Lions what their mission would be—another escort mission, though this one took them into the Empire proper, somewhere Ingrid had never been, so there was at least that. (Professor Hanneman had told them all that the Empire was overrated. Ingrid wasn’t about to let him color her first impressions with his pessimism.)

But then…

Then, she heard what the Black Eagles were doing this month.

(“You’re sure you’re alright?”

What smile Sylvain summoned for her sake failed utterly to convince Ingrid of its integrity. It was… She did not know what it was, besides something unfitting for a human mouth.

“I’m okay, Ingrid; you worry way too much. He’s had this coming for a long time.”

But there was no light in his eyes, and no certainty in Ingrid’s heart.)

Ingrid had never known Miklan very well. He had held himself aloof, and her parents had never seemed very easy with the idea of her spending too much time around him. What little Ingrid had learned of Miklan did not exactly put her in the mood to _want_ to know him better.

Now, whether or not she ever felt the want, it seemed that Ingrid would never have the chance to know Miklan better.

-

“Edelgard!”

Ingrid had seen little of Edelgard since the tumult of the end of the Blue Sea Moon. She had _not_ been avoiding Edelgard, regardless of what you might think. Frankly, Ingrid had had a lot to do, and little time for conversations. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion was just a couple of months away, and Dimitri had gotten perhaps a little _too_ caught up in the spirit of competition, for he’d insisted that the class meet up at the training grounds at least once a day to train and spar (And in Annette, Mercedes, and Ashe’s cases, target practice). Between that and her schoolwork, Ingrid hadn’t had much time for aught else but eating, bathing, and sleeping. She absolutely had _not_ been going out of her way to avoid Edelgard. What would have been the point?

But now, as Ingrid hastened to catch up to Edelgard as the latter was leaving the dining hall after supper, Dorothea’s speculations bobbed back up to the forefront of her mind, and Ingrid felt her face begin to burn, blood pulsing hot and fast beneath her skin. It was ridiculous, what Dorothea had tried to imply—ridiculous and impossible. Ingrid thought she could have stood it if it was just her who was subjected to these suppositions, but what if Dorothea had brought it up to Edelgard as well? Dorothea would have had far more opportunities to speak to Edelgard than did Ingrid, and she’d never struck Ingrid as someone who thought much of stemming words she herself saw no harm in.

Perhaps approaching Edelgard at this time might not have been the wisest course of action. But it was too late; Edelgard had already turned to look her way. And really, Ingrid did not wish to lend _any_ credence to Dorothea’s misapprehension of the situation by stalking off now like a child with a crush. She was close enough to adulthood that Ingrid thought she could expect adult behavior of herself.

Besides, it would have been beyond the pale to treat the Imperial princess with such discourtesy. Steeling her nerves, Ingrid forced herself to straighten, forced her pace to slow to a respectable walk, and came to walk at Edelgard’s side, matching her pace.

“Ingrid.” Edelgard bowed her head in acknowledgment, scarcely turning her gaze to Ingrid’s form. “I haven’t seen much of you, lately.”

“No, I imagine you haven’t. We’ve been training for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.”

A startled laugh jarred from Edelgard’s mouth. “Oh? I must admit, I am surprised by how much stock is placed in it; when I first came here, I expected it to be treated in much the same way as the mock battle at the beginning of the year, but it’s become so important to everyone.”

And why shouldn’t it? The Battle of the Eagle and Lion would be their chance to show off how much they had learned, their chance to cut their teeth against a large-scale battle, even if no killing was to occur. (Ingrid had heard whispers regarding previous years. She’d heard whispers of purely accidental mishaps. She had also heard whispers of heirs taking stray arrows that struck home in truly unfortunate locations, and not always were those arrows shot by students from rival houses. But nothing like that would be happening this year. Surely, nothing like that would be happening this year. By the Goddess, Ingrid hoped that nothing like that would be happening this year.) Ingrid wanted the chance to prove herself. It would not be true battlefield experience, but she knew it would go well for her if she made a good showing of herself, _especially_ if her class carried the day. There were plenty of lords in the Kingdom who placed a great deal of stock in this upcoming battle.

And Ingrid looked forward also to seeing how the other students had grown. She wanted to trade blows with Leonie, wanted to see if Ignatz was sill so apologetic when he actually landed a blow against someone. She wanted to see if Bernadetta could get through a full melee battle without screaming, or if Caspar had learned greater forbearance than what Ingrid had earlier thought him capable of. She wanted to see how her classmates had grown, wanted to see the shapes of what they could yet grow into.

“Is it really so unimportant to you?” Ingrid probed, eyeing Edelgard curiously. “I would have thought you’d like to present a strong face to the rest of the Academy.”

Another laugh came, rueful this time, and Ingrid, reflecting upon just how rare Edelgard’s laughter was, savored it. “I… I suppose I do have some desire to test my strength against the others. I should set a better example for my classmates than this—“ but she was smiling “—but I warn you, you will not find the Black Eagles so easily overcome.”

Ingrid laughed in turn. “I hope not; foes easily bested would be far too boring.” But then, she recalled just why the Black Eagles might be so battle-hardy, and the smile faded from her face. “Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.” Try as she might, she could not keep from sounding subdued. “May I speak to you about your class’s mission this month?”

Edelgard searched her face, a sharp gleam glinting in her eyes like the tip of a knife, whose owner could not decide whether or not to stab. “That might be best. I would like information about our target from someone who knows him.”

Pointless to ask how Edelgard knew that Ingrid had known Miklan. Doubtless, Edelgard had seen Ingrid interact with Sylvain (Doubtless, she had overheard Ingrid scolding Sylvain when he made a racket retuning to the dormitories after his late-night rendezvouses), and it wouldn’t be too much more of a stretch to assume that Edelgard knew something of the bonds deliberately fostered between the children of border lords in the Kingdom. As embarrassing as his behavior was, Ingrid had never tried to _hide_ her long-standing association with Sylvain. There would have been no point; familiarity leaked from them when they spoke, like water seeping through cracks in a dam.

At least Ingrid was spared having to find something to say to open the conversation. “Ask away, then.”

“I have heard that the leader of this band of thieves, Miklan Gautier, is Sylvain Gautier’s older brother.” No hesitation. Ingrid was almost envious. “Is that correct?”

“Yes. Miklan is six or seven years older than Sylvain.” It only occurred now to Ingrid that she didn’t know the exact figure. Why was that? Miklan had always held himself aloof, and Ingrid was always discouraged from associating with him, but he had still been a part of her childhood for as long as Ingrid could recall. This seemed like the sort of thing she should have known.

Edelgard nodded crisply. The matter of Miklan’s exact age _would_ matter less to a stranger. “As I suspected. I am told that this Miklan has stolen the Relic of House Gautier, the Lance of Ruin.”

A lump of ice dropped into Ingrid’s stomach. “I… did not know that.”

“No, I imagine not; the Church is trying to keep the news from spreading.”

Margrave Gautier, too, Ingrid would guess. What ruin could befall House Gautier should the warmongers of Sreng learn that they had lost their ancestral Relic?

“What do you know of the lance?” Edelgard pressed. “I can only assume that Miklan will bring it to bear when we roust him from his hiding place, but we’ve been told very little about it.” Her face darkened. “I do not care to walk into a battle without understanding one of the most vital components of our enemy’s armament.”

“Not much.”

There were stories of the Lance of Ruin, of course, the same as the other Heroes’ Relics. But the stories never spoke of specifics, instead using expansive language very similar to the way the old tales spoke of Lúin. Much was made of it being a lance fit to kill monsters with, a lance that promised death to all who approached the wielder. But much the same was made of Lúin. The only difference was that Lúin promised fire to rival the infernos of Ailell, while the Lance of Ruin…

“There are tales of the War of Heroes that speak of Gautier’s exploits.” Ingrid stared up at the darkening sky, tracing lines of stringy clouds made black by the gory red backdrop behind them. “One in particular speaks of a time Gautier confronted an army two thousand strong. He lifted the Lance of Ruin high above his head, and with it he rent the sky, and the army arrayed against him fell down dead.”

There were some who considered tales of the Relics’ power fantastical. Ingrid would not have thought Edelgard, descended of Seiros, would be among them, but judging by the face she had just made, Ingrid supposed she might be wrong. “Well, that sounds…”

“Exaggerated?” Ingrid supplied wryly. “Perhaps we who live in these times are unable to unlock the full power of the Relics, but in the days of the Elites when the blood still ran strong, more could be done with them.” Her mouth twisted downwards. “Edelgard, why not ask Sylvain these questions? He could tell you more than I.”

She hoped, _really hoped_ , that the answer to that did not lie anywhere in the vicinity of Sylvain’s proclivities. Ingrid would have thought that even Sylvain would have sense enough to not try to proposition the Imperial princess, of all women; Ingrid would have thought that of the broken hearts and ruined reputations he left in his wake, he would have stuck to his established pattern and aimed at someone considerably more vulnerable than Edelgard. Especially considering the elephant in the room—also known as the man in the room on the other side of Edelgard’s room from Hilda, who very much gave off the impression of having hidden a few dead bodies in his time. Sylvain wasn’t fool enough to test his luck against Edelgard, _surely_.

Mercifully, Edelgard’s face did not twist with the sort of distaste that would have proven Ingrid’s fears correct. “I did ask,” she said quietly. “He did not seem eager to speak of _anything_ regarding his family, let alone his brother or the lance. I… do not claim to know Sylvain well, but I can’t say that I was surprised.”

“Why not?”

Edelgard was rather too elegant for a shrug, or so Ingrid thought, but the movement of her shoulders suggested something like it. “I cannot say; it was just a feeling. Feelings rarely care for the rational mind. Ingrid.” And now, her voice was like steel again, and Ingrid found herself snapping to attention like a soldier called by their superior officer, attention rapt on whatever words might come. “I…” Edelgard’s tone softened slightly, ever so slightly. “If you have the time, I have more questions for you.”

The prospect of Edelgard’s curiosity was oddly mesmerizing, something else that slipped below the ivy and concealed itself there, only allowing the barest hints of its shape to reveal itself to Ingrid’s mind’s eye. She did not dwell on that overmuch. The rest of her mind shied away from it. “Of course.” She tilted her head a little closer to Edelgard, the better to discern the nuances of her subtle tones.

Edelgard drew to a halt in the shadow of the Academy building, half-lost to shadow, any facial expression she could have made drowned in the wall of oncoming night. “Miklan has no Crest, is that correct?”

“Indeed, it is.”

Such could hardly have remained a secret. It was hardly inconspicuous, the way the Gautier parents favored the one son over the other. Barely any more inconspicuous, that Ingrid had never heard of anyone making offers for Miklan when they could be making offers for Sylvain instead—even when they were older, when Sylvain had exposed himself as a heedless lecher and Miklan had cultivated a dubious reputation to go along with his lacking a Crest, what few offers still came House Gautier’s way were invariably aimed at Sylvain. Ingrid knew that her own parents had tried desperately for another Crest-bearing child after her, and she wondered at times why there seemed to have been no similar attempts within House Gautier…

But then again, Ingrid wondered if she hadn’t seen the result of at least one attempt on the margrave’s part.

It was no use dwelling on things she hadn’t been meant to see.

“And his lack of a Crest is the reason he was passed over for succession in favor of Sylvain?”

It was at least framed as a genuine question, which puzzled Ingrid. Did they not promote children with Crests in the Empire? The Empire had been founded by one who followed Seiros with Seiros’s own lifetime. The capital was renowned as the city of Seiros. Would they not take a child being born with a Crest as a sign of the Goddess’s favor? Would they not promote the child favored by the Goddess over the one who was not?

“Yes,” Ingrid said slowly. “It has always been the practice of the Kingdom to promote a child with a Crest in the line of succession.”

Too dark to make out the exact expression on Edelgard’s face, but a cloud passed away from the dying sun, just enough for Ingrid to see her tilt her head. “Is that so? Correct me if I am wrong, but I have heard that none of your siblings have Crests, and that your father has not officially acknowledged you as his heir.”

Where Edelgard could have heard that, Ingrid did not know, and did not care to contemplate. Her stomach churned at the thought of her friends gossiping about her irregular status within her house to those who had not known for years the circumstances her house presently ‘enjoyed,’ to those who did not already know her father’s reasoning, nor what her family stood to gain or lose.

(She wished, sometimes, that she by herself could have been enough. The part of her that was yet an ungrateful child wished that she could simply be acknowledged as heir, become the next Lady Galatea, and enrich their house in such a capacity. But that _was_ the voice of ingratitude speaking, wasn’t it? Her father had been on this earth far longer than her, had far more experience of the ledgers and budgets of their house. He understood better than her what was needed for the survival of their house. What he did with her would be what was best for their house. What she did at her father’s bidding would ensure that her brothers’ children, were they ever to have any, would not go hungry as their fathers had.)

“Things are different in House Galatea,” Ingrid explained at last. “In House Gautier, it is absolutely necessary for the head of the house to have a Crest.”

“And why is that?” Edelgard pressed. “Would that necessity hold even if the only child born to the present margrave with a Crest was in all other ways unfit to become the head of the house? Would the prospective heir remain heir even if they were short-sighted, or selfish, or malicious? Even if the sibling passed over in their favor was wiser, more tempered, more qualified?”

If that was supposed to be some sort of dig at Sylvain, then Ingrid, blood suddenly running hot, would defend her friend whole-heartedly. Sylvain was not the most mature person Ingrid had ever known, quite the contrary, and he had more bad decisions under his belt than some people twice his age, and his conduct towards women was appalling, but to compare him to _Miklan_? Miklan, who, though he had always held himself aloof, had always clearly had a dark cloud hanging over him, one thunderclap shy of a storm? Miklan, who, even if he had a Crest, even if he had earlier been the heir, would have proved himself utterly unworthy with his raids on the northern villages and his theft of the Lance of Ruin?

Her anger fizzled at the look Edelgard pinned her down with. Still, it was too dark to make out the exact quality of her face, but something about that stare, something about the darkling gleam of her shadowed eyes, stopped blustering anger in Ingrid’s throat.

Once Ingrid explained it, she was sure Edelgard would understand.

“House Gautier guards the border of the Kingdom and the northlands of Sreng.” Ingrid could provide a basic history lesson, but these things had never been considered as essential to her education as they were to Sylvain’s, or even to her own brothers’. She felt the lack of knowledge especially keenly now. “For more than two hundred years, House Gautier and Sreng have been in a near-constant state of conflict. Border skirmishes are common; wars are more rare, but they have happened. When I was a little girl, King Lambert annexed the southern region of that land to the Kingdom; the people of Sreng have fought against us all the more fiercely for it ever since.”

Edelgard made a small sound, but otherwise did not seek to interrupt.

Undeterred, Ingrid went on, “The Lance of Ruin has been a vital weapon in the protection of the border. Whole battles have seen their prospective outcomes change based on the presence of the lance and its wielder. The lord of House Gautier _must_ be able to wield it when he leads his forces into battle.”

What if they couldn’t retrieve the lance? What if Miklan drew on his deep capacity for spite and sent the lance away, to be concealed in some distance mountain encampment that might go undiscovered for years yet? What would become of House Gautier and the northern border in the meantime?

Ingrid’s mind was filled with visions of war. The warriors of Sreng were fierce and grim, and driven by their hate for the faithful, and would dig in and fight to the death, even should all the warriors of Faerghus should be arrayed against them. In her mind’s eye, Ingrid imagined the way such a battle could turn out without the might of the Lance of Ruin. Eventually, she was able to stop imagining it. Not before the vision was soaked in blood.

From the darkness, there came a faint shift that it took Ingrid a moment to recognize as Edelgard drawing up to her full height. She was not very tall, Edelgard—even at her full height and in her shoes, she was a little shorter than Ingrid herself. But in the dark, she stood tall, the shadows lending height to her that far exceeded the bounds of her flesh. “Must they?”

“Wha— _yes_ , they must.”

“You have told me,” Edelgard said, quiet, measured, otherwise indecipherable, “that House Gautier and the land of Sreng are locked in eternal warfare. For that reason, the Lance of Ruin is required. And on account of the Lance of Ruin, the Crest of Gautier is required.

“If weaponry comparable in power to a Hero’s Relic was created, that could be wielded to its full potential by a user who bore no Crest,” Edelgard mused, “that would be one method to solve the problem. But it's not a permanent solution, is it? When you wage a war with weapons, there are few ways to truly end it. You can cow your opponents so completely that they would not dare raise arms against you, but doing so breeds resentment, and will eventually foment a new war. You can kill all who might oppose you, but that is costly, and there you must be careful, for in any survivors who escape the dragnets there will burn an unquenchable hatred.

“There is only one way to end a war for all time,” Edelgard murmured, so softly that Ingrid had to strain to hear her. “To end a war for all time, you must change their minds. You must convince those who fight without end to see the world in a different light. You must convince them to see each other with new eyes.” She let out a small huff of breath, too weak and too bitter to be a laugh. “Would that such a thing was so easily accomplished.”

“’Change… their minds.’” The words sat heavy and ponderous on Ingrid’s tongue, something that did not quite belong there. “You mean the people of Sreng?’

Did not quite belong, but was not as hateful as it should have been. _Why…_

“Indeed.” And before Ingrid could resurrect the rote, well-taught objections from her childhood lessons, Edelgard went on, “And not simply them, either.”

“What do you mean?” Now that the objections had time, they flowed like water from her lips. “The people of Sreng are our _enemies_. They have killed so many of our people, and we have killed so many of theirs. Who, exactly, would be able to change their minds?”

Edelgard slipped past her, back out into the dying light. She regarded Ingrid coolly, but with something like pity in her eyes. The expression made Ingrid feel small, but not as a child who failed to grasp an important, basic truth. This was more remote, more like two people standing on opposite sides of a gorge, with the only bridge between them crumbling, and it left unknown whether or not the bridge could be repaired.

“I mean that Gautier may have had more than one idea in mind when he named the weapon the ‘Lance of Ruin,’” Edelgard replied briskly, “for it seems to me that the lance does not simply bring ruin to those it is leveled against. Good night, Ingrid.”

-

Those words would ring in Ingrid’s mind for the rest of the night, and long afterwards, but she could not dwell on them for now. As much as the dismissal had stung, she was not a child to react with sudden temper. And besides that, she had somewhere else to be.

“There you are,” Catherine called out, as Ingrid shut the doors to the training grounds behind her. “I was starting to wonder if you’d even show up.”

Ingrid grinned in response, all teeth and no concern for properly ladylike smiles. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but you must know I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

Catherine snorted, throwing up her hands and shaking her hand in that vaguely horse-like way that had somehow managed to remain a part of her since Ingrid was a small child, when so much else had changed. “I think you rate my teaching skills too highly. Go on and pick out a practice sword. I’ve got to be out of here early tomorrow morning to go deal with the Western Church.”

And hopefully, _hopefully_ , once what remained of the Western Church was eradicated, the cloud that lingered over Ashe’s head would lift, and there would no longer be any fear of his being escorted to a dungeon.

‘Eradicate…’

Ingrid’s stomach twisted as she selected a training sword, her body giving voice to the trouble clouding her mind, even if her mouth would not. There was… there was much to trouble her waking mind, at the moment. But she wasn’t going to let any of that worry her right now, not when she finally had the chance to train with Catherine one on one. She had no idea when, or even if, such an opportunity would come again. She’d not squander it, not even when in the grip of a troubled mind.

The training session passed largely in silence, punctuated by Catherine giving advice on stance or grip or footwork, her voice thrumming low with tension all the while. Catherine was significantly less boisterous than Ingrid expected her to be (than she remembered her being as a child watching an adolescent girl trounce all who opposed her in the Charon training grounds), but there could be no denying her focus.

Ingrid knew she would have needed multiple training sessions with Catherine for her teachings to make a real difference on her technique or her battle prowess, but she could not quite bring herself to regard the training session in quite such a light. She’d learned enough just now that she thought she could apply it to battle, if need be.

_What would Father say of our house’s reputation, if he saw me associating with someone who weathered such disgrace within the Kingdom?_

She put that stray thought from her mind. Catherine had taken on a new identity to be here, in this place, and she had left her disgrace behind her when she sought penance. More to the point, her father had never breathed a word about Catherine in any of his missives. So long as his silence persisted, she could only assume he had no objection to her learning from Catherine. (It felt like an excuse. It made her feel like a child again, recalling the few times she had been foolish enough to use her parents’ having never voiced objections to something as free license to do that something. This was not the same, though. Surely there could be no harm in this. Her heart was true, and Catherine had found redemption in penance. Surely there could be no danger from something as simple as this.)

“Alright,” Catherine breathed, only a little hoarsely, maybe forty minutes after they’d begun, “that’s enough for a first training session. Put your sword away and do the cool-down exercises—you wouldn’t believe how many of the knights try to skip that.”

“I might believe it more than you think.” Ingrid winced as she stretched out her left leg. “These are—I would be lying if I said I found this especially pleasant.”

With much greater ease and no apparent discomfort, Catherine settled into the same stance. “You’d feel a lot worse in the morning if you didn’t do this, trust me.”

Glenn’s face showed itself briefly in Ingrid’s mind; she pushed it down, heat prickling in her eyes. “I know. I, umm, I made that mistake a few years ago. I’m not likely to forget it.”

After the cool-down exercises were run through, Catherine wasn’t out of the door as Ingrid might have expected. Instead, she went and sat down heavily against a far wall, taking a deep swig from her water skin and letting her eyes fall shut. There was a little hint of Cassandra, as well; Cassandra, who’d just plop down wherever she pleased when she was tired, uncaring of what anyone else might think. More than once had Ingrid wished she could be so self-possessed.

Now, she had a different test of her confidence to undergo.

For her own sake, she could not shirk it.

“Catherine…”

Before Ingrid could go on any further, Catherine opened one of her bright blue eyes and fixed it upon Ingrid. “Come sit down if you’re gonna talk to me in that tone of voice.” At least she didn’t sound too annoyed. “You’ll make me nervous, otherwise.”

“Of course.” Ingrid settled down on the ground beside her, legs folded beneath her in a way that reminded her irresistibly of her mother— _“It is not entirely proper, but it will do in a pinch, if there are no chairs to be had”_ —managing to restrain a wince at the protest put out by her muscles. She could think of no other way to sit that would have felt natural, or not felt obscene. “Actually, I was hoping I could speak to you about something…”

“Go right ahead.” What traces of annoyance had clung in tatters to her voice was gone now, replaced by ease, even if that ease was blunted with fatigue. “I’ve got nowhere to be tonight.”

Still, Ingrid would try not to keep her for too long. She’d hardly forgotten that Catherine had somewhere to be in the morning. “I…” Ingrid stared down at her hands, still tinted an angry pinkish-red with exertion and heat. “Have you heard about Miklan?”

They must have known each other. Ingrid might not be able to pin down Miklan’s exact age, but she knew that whatever the figure, it put him and Catherine together as contemporaries—the same age, or close to it. Back before Sylvain was born and Miklan was downgraded from (not really, waiting for the birth of a sibling or a cousin with a Crest) heir presumptive to the potential father of future heirs but never the heir himself, he and Catherine must have known each other. They would have been introduced, for the same reason that Ingrid and Felix and Sylvain had been introduced: the border lords should always be able to put faces to the names of the people they might have to reinforce or rescue.

Catherine’s memories of Miklan might be something utterly unlike Ingrid’s memories. That was something to think about. Whether the prickling, twisting thing it inspired in Ingrid was hope or fear was more difficult to say.

Catherine nodded choppily. Staring straight ahead, “I know. It sounds like he’s about to get what’s coming to him.”

Not quite as fervent as Ingrid had expected, that tone. “That’s what Sylvain said, too.” And realizing what her own tone might be taken to imply, she hastened to add, “And I believe it as well. I _have_ heard tell of what he was doing in the north, even before he absconded with the Lance of Ruin. Any true knight would agree that the only just sentence is death.”

“You might want to find another knight to talk about _that_ with,” Catherine remarked dryly. “Me personally, I think I might be struck by lightning if _I_ said things like that about Miklan.”

Ingrid felt her face grow hot. “But surely your circumstances can’t compare to his.”

This earned her a harsh, bitter bark of a laugh. “Oh, they can’t, can they?” She laughed a little more, before sobering suddenly. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard the story, Ingrid. Think about it.”

“But you didn’t abduct anyone,” Ingrid argued, “or steal a weapon as vital to the defense of Charon territory as the Lance of Ruin is to Gautier territory.” _What if we could change their minds instead?_ a voice that sounded very much like Edelgard whispered in the back of her mind, a thorn that would fester if not confronted. But this was not the place, was it? Not the place, and not the time. “And you sought out the archbishop for absolution.”

“And those are just about the only differences between me and Miklan.”

Oh, certainly, if Catherine wished also to overlook how cruel Miklan’s treatment of Sylvain had always been, how different that was from Catherine’s own considerably more affectionate treatment of her brothers and sisters. Certainly, if Catherine wanted to overlook nearly _everything_ about Miklan as a person.

And no doubt Ingrid’s dubiousness had shown itself on her face, for Catherine nudged Ingrid’s ribs with her elbow—gently, and avoiding where Ingrid had been injured that day in the forest. “Listen to me now, Ingrid. I wasn’t disowned by my family—I was implicated in a plot to kill the king.” She grimaced, running her hand slowly through her hair. “If I had been thinking at all, I would have realized my accusers were just trying to spook me. They had no evidence; it was just a ploy to drag House Charon’s name through the mud.

“But I panicked, and fled, taking Thunderbrand with me. My accusers had no evidence, but my reaction made me look guilty. And then I turned to banditry, and that made me look even guiltier.

“I can’t say that I was much better than Miklan, in those days,” Catherine muttered, her mouth carved in a deep frown. “I was neither part of a group of bandits, nor their leader. But I fought, and I stole. I put fear into the hearts of the innocent.” She shut her eyes. “And I killed the innocent. For this, there are many in the Kingdom who argue still that I deserve death for all that I did.”

Ingrid wanted to argue, but she couldn’t quite find it in herself to do so. She could remember the reports. Her parents had tried to keep it from her, but gossip flew on wings in the Galatea keep, and even if those wings were not so swift as they were in Garreg Mach, they were still _wings_ , and news found its way to Ingrid’s ears. She knew what had gone on in the south of the land while Catherine haunted its mists.

_We are supposed to seek penance._

But when Ingrid thought about it, she had only ever heard of taking holy orders and becoming a hallowed knight as penance for _knightly_ failings. It was penance for cowardice, for refusal to follow orders, for failing to die defending a fallen liege lord. Not for what Catherine had done—Catherine, who had not even been a knight when she had done what she had gone seeking out penance for.

_Who am I to say that redemption is impossible?_

Ingrid was no one to say such a thing. And if the Archbishop could not declare that someone had been redeemed for their past… indiscretions, who could? If the speaker of their grieved but merciful Goddess’s will could not hand out a penance, and declare the penitent redeemed, then no one could.

_Merciful…_

Her thoughts went to all locations tonight, pulling apart at the seams in their haste to scatter. Now, one thread had settled on the Western Church, and what was to be done with them. What was to be done with _all_ of them, not just the rebel leaders.

“But you found penance here,” Ingrid insisted—but her skin was starting to prickle as if tickled by knives, her discomfort no longer content to be a creature haunting solely the mind. “Miklan hasn’t done that. Miklan hasn’t even _tried_ to repent.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Catherine agreed. The reassurance of her words proved short-lived. “He could have, you know. If he had stopped short of stealing the Lance of Ruin, come here, and abased himself before Lady Rhea, he could have been given a penance to carry out. Say what you like about Miklan, but he was always a beast when I sparred with him, and the things I’ve heard suggest no different when it comes to the battlefield. The Knights of Seiros can always use another skilled warrior, and if a man like Miklan was to pledge his blade to the Goddess, a skilled warrior is what we’d get.”

Personally, what _Ingrid_ thought the Knights of Seiros would get was a black mark on their reputation, one that might have stuck around long after Miklan himself was gone. Did service to Seiros and the Goddess really wipe away all earthly sins? Did it really excuse what Miklan had done? _Does it really excuse what_ Catherine _has done, do you mean?_ she asked herself. And honestly…

Catherine did not notice Ingrid’s disquiet, or else she had chosen to ignore it. “Miklan could have chosen penance, or I could have been marked for death the way he’s been marked for death. I killed the innocent, and I used a holy weapon to do it. When that news reached her, Lady Rhea could easily have sent out the knights to kill me for that transgression. Have I surprised you?” she queried, smiling wryly at Ingrid, though there was no smile in her eyes. “Yes, I have; don’t bother trying to deny it. I deserved death, Ingrid.” The smile had fled her face, lines digging into her brow that belied her youth. “The things I did after I fled House Charon were—are—beyond the ability of any earthly power to forgive.” She sighed heavily. “But I did not wish to live that way forever. There was nothing fulfilling about that life; I could take no satisfaction in it, let alone pleasure. And I know Lady Rhea from my days at the Academy. I thought that if I came to her seeking penance, she would grant it.” Another deep, heavy sigh. “And I thought my life would carry some value through the service I carried out on her behalf.

“Ingrid, you think of Miklan and you think of a thief and a murderer, beyond all hope of forgiveness. I think of Miklan, and I wonder how easily our positions could have been reversed. I wonder about the death I deserved, but never received, because of Lady Rhea’s mercy upon me.” She tilted her head back against the wall, staring into nothing. “And I think about how little I deserved that mercy.”

It was a long time before Ingrid could find her voice. Catherine did not seem to question the silence. Ingrid picked at her trousers, until she realized that that was what she was doing and forced herself to stop. “I… I see.”

“It’s not that different from a knight swearing faith to a temporal liege lord.” Catherine shrugged and waved a hand through the air. “When I was a bandit, I learned something important about myself.”

There was something brewing in Ingrid’s mind. She did not trust herself to speak it until after it was fully-formed. “And what was that?”

“Two things,” Catherine amended. Her eyes were glazed over, speaking of tiredness, and something beyond it that Ingrid couldn’t put a name to. “I learned that I don’t want to die. That wasn’t much of a life, but even so, I didn’t want to lose it.” She breathed hard through her nose, nostrils flaring. “But I also learned…” She felt silent, eyes downcast. “You’ve never been tested like that, Ingrid,” Catherine muttered. “You don’t know if you’d hold true to everything you were taught to hold sacred if you were tossed into the crucible. Well, I was tossed into that crucible, and I failed the test. I learned how fast all the morals I was raised with would desert my mind if I wasn’t taking orders from someone. I learned how fast I can turn into a beast, if I don’t put myself into the hands of a genuinely good person. So I do as Lady Rhea tells me, and I haven’t strayed again since.”

“So… you do what she asks of you? Always, without question?”

It was a bizarre thing even to _ask_ —bizarre enough to ask after casually, let alone seriously question. Obedience was a cardinal virtue of knights; they were to follow their liege lord’s orders without question. That was what they were supposed to do. But that thing brewing in her mind was close to taking concrete shape, and where it was leading her…

Seemingly unaware of just where Ingrid’s thoughts were carrying her, Catherine nodded firmly. “Yes, I do. When I was in the world, without anyone to turn to for guidance, I became a beast. But when I follow her orders, I am a knight, and I can serve justice instead of the spirit of Nemesis. The only order she might give me that I wouldn’t follow would be an order to die; after all, I can’t protect her if I’m _dead_ , can I? Whatever else she asks is good to me.”

(Years later, Ingrid and Catherine would stare at each other across a lake of fire. The smoke would sting Ingrid’s eyes, and far below, the fell light of the flames would illuminate Catherine’s face and make a death mask out of her skin. Ingrid would spy the tears streaming down Catherine’s face, and she would wonder if it was the smoke that had birthed them, would wonder what Catherine thought of orders now.)

That thing had taken full shape, and Ingrid needed only to glance at the hulking shape of it in her mind to know that it would give her no peace until she had given it a voice. “What about the Western Church?”

“What _about_ them?” Irritability had found its way back into Catherine’s voice, quick and sharp as the crack of a whip. “They’ve pointed their swords at the Goddess, and they’ve attacked Lady Rhea.” Judging by the way her voice dropped almost to a growl at the end of that sentence, she seemed to regard the latter as the greater sin. “They’ve signed their own death warrants. We’re just putting our stamps to them.”

Ashe’s pale face floated to the forefront of Ingrid’s mind. “The bishop of the Western Church, yes. The higher-ranking officials, probably. But _all_ of them? There must be hundreds of people associated with the Western Church, at least; maybe more than a thousand. Was every single monk and novice a part of it? Do _all_ of them deserve death?”

 _Did the people of Duscur all deserve death equally?_ Now, it was Dedue’s face in her mind, the phantom whispers of past conversations hissing in her ears. _Did the land deserve to be salted? Did the soil deserve to be saturated with fresh blood?_

“Our orders were to eliminate them all.” Ease had found its way back into Catherine’s voice, the ease of total confidence. “If those are our orders, then Lady Rhea must be sure that they were all involved.”

Ingrid stared incredulously at her. “What if she’s wrong?” But her greater incredulity was reserved for herself, for asking the question in the first place, here, of all places.

Another long silence, stretched and soured by the disconcerting gleam in Catherine’s eyes as she looked Ingrid over. At length, she shook her head. “I am going to choose not to be offended by that, since I can tell why you’re asking it. But no, Ingrid, Lady Rhea is _not_ wrong.” Her face contorted, that gleam shifting into something distinctly more uneasy. “Lady Rhea is a good person. She’s the kindest person I have ever known. She wouldn’t order us to eliminate the entire Western Church if she wasn’t certain that they’re all guilty. She just wouldn’t.”

What had happened to Ashe in the month before Lord Lonato died was at Lady Rhea’s command, as well. But Ingrid knew what Catherine would have said about that, knew she would have spoken of the necessity of diligence and extracting information. She thought she knew what Catherine would have said, anyways.

She was already treading dangerous ground. No need to go running over the edge of the cliff. Ingrid stood, thanked Catherine for the training session, and went on her way.

-

As was becoming a recurring theme, sleep was difficult to come by for the next several nights. Oh, the thoughts were easy enough to keep at bay when the sun shone; work was, as ever, a powerful balm to all doubts, something that could just swallow doubt whole and give back to her the simple satisfaction of doing her work, and doing it well. Lectures, note-taking, homework, sparring, they all drew the mind away from all that could make it spiral into doubt and disquiet.

But no matter how late Ingrid stayed up doing her homework, she had to extinguish the candle eventually, had to lie down and wait for sleep to pass the door and crawl into bed beside her. With nothing left to distract the mind, it was open once more to all that sought to pull it apart.

No news regarding the knights’ campaign, no news regarding the purge of the Western Church. Just as during the initial revolt in Gaspard territory, the authorities in Garreg Mach had moved quickly to stem the tide of information as best they could. No whispers reached Ingrid’s ears; gossip’s wings had been clipped. For all Ingrid knew, the purge could already be complete, every priest, nun, monk, and novice in the Western Church dead and buried, and the knights might already be on their way back. For all Ingrid knew, an army of vengeful heretics (with aggrieved true-faithful mixed in) could be on their way to level an assault on Garreg Mach itself.

Would any of them escape? Ingrid couldn’t believe, just couldn’t believe, that every single person who took religious orders within the Western Church was involved in the conspiracy against the Archbishop. People often became novices as children; who would involve a _child_ in such a conspiracy, knowing how children’s tongues were wont to wag? No, Ingrid couldn’t believe they were all involved. It just stretched credulity too far.

Would they escape? If Catherine was right and the Knights of Seiros would have readily accepted a man like Miklan into their ranks, then Ingrid did not doubt that there were knights within the ranks who wouldn’t have balked at being asked to kill children. But not all of them would be willing to do such a thing, surely. There would be those who would be willing to look the other way while those children fled into the wilds, free from the sharp blades of the Central Church.

_And then they will burn with unassuageable hatred, until either they have destroyed the Central Church, or they are dead._

Ingrid wondered if Edelgard had intended for her words to have such an effect. Wondered if she had intended for them to spark disquiet or sow seeds of doubt. Maybe it wasn’t so far gone as doubt yet, but disquiet, yes, she could admit to disquiet.

Killing children… that wasn’t very knightly. Catherine believed whole-heartedly that the Archbishop would not have given the order for a full purge unless she believed them all to be guilty. Catherine being much higher in the Archbishop’s confidences than Ingrid, Ingrid supposed she had no choice but to take Catherine at her word. But the decision to conduct a full purge had come down so quickly; had there really been time enough for a thorough investigation, one that would have accurately identified who all the players in the conspiracy were?

The Archbishop was firm in her belief that every member of the Western Church was involved in this heresy. That didn’t mean she was _right_. To Ingrid’s mind, it would always beggar belief that novices could have been trusted with such information; the whole conspiracy would have been exposed before it had the chance to get off the ground, if so. But even if they were aware of it, they were still _children_. They were children would who have had little choice but to do as their elders told them. With time and care and teaching, surely they could have learned better of their elders’ folly. Ingrid could not see how killing them was necessary.

She could not see how it was just.

 _If I become a knight, my liege lord might command me to do something like this._ The tales glossed over such things when it came to characters who were supposed to be heroic, but Ingrid had read many old books of military history as well. She was not totally naïve. _Such things happen in times of war…_

Ingrid had also read accounts of the far more recent campaign in Sreng, that which had won so much new land for the Kingdom. They were quite plentiful—and quite detailed.

Ingrid rolled over in bed, sighing heavily. It was useless to dwell on such things. There was nothing she could do about it right now, and if she never became a knight, she would most likely never be in a situation to learn what she would do, if the choice was either following an unjust order or the dishonor of disobeying her liege lord. Her fate was elsewhere—how likely was it that she would ever be tossed into that crucible? How likely was it that she would ever be confronted with that thankless moment of truth?

It wasn’t worth the attention she was ascribing to it. It ought to slip from her mind as sand slipping from between her fingers. But instead, it was tangled up in the ivy, sinking further in, further out of reach, further beyond her ability to remove.

-

That disquiet persisted, stronger than Ingrid’s will. It gnawed at her in the dark, and not even news from her father, that the negotiations with Viscount Kleiman had fallen through and Ingrid would most certainly not be wedding the viscount’s second son, could ease Ingrid’s troubled mind.

News came down ahead of the returning Black Eagles that Miklan was dead. Just ‘dead’; no specifics. Even Sylvain hadn’t been told the specifics, and he was the dead man’s brother.

Ingrid would be lying if she tried to claim that she would miss Miklan. Even when they were children, she wouldn’t have been able to say that honestly. But she would have liked to have known how he had died. She would have liked to have known if he had at least acquitted himself as a warrior. She did not understand why the Church would feel the need to suppress the information. As far as she could tell, doing so served no purpose whatsoever.

The Black Eagles’ return meant the return of Edelgard and, perhaps, the end to Ingrid’s disquiet, if only they could speak. If she could just get Edelgard alone, if she could just explain what she had _meant_ by all that, then surely, all else would make sense. Surely, Ingrid had only gotten part of the story.

(Later, she would wonder why it was that she was looking at Edelgard in particular as such a talisman against confusion, when she was far from the only source of it—when most of Ingrid’s confusion arose entirely from within.)

Ingrid found her alone in the training grounds one morning, going through her forms with a training axe that must by now have felt like a child’s toy, when held in hands that had taken lives in battle. Still, it was a sparring weapon, and here felt more natural than seeking Edelgard out in the dining hall, felt less hair-raisingly intimate than slipping into her room once more.

Ingrid lifted a sword from the racks, made the offer…

…and felt bitterness coat her mouth as Edelgard merely shook her head, her gaze more impassive than any Ingrid had earlier seen come her way, and turned back to her training.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tweaked the would-be fiancé’s backstory a little in the search for something that would make him awful enough that a man desperate enough for an infusion of cash as Count Galatea is implied to be would automatically drop him as a potential son-in-law upon learning about what he had done to make his wealth. In a kingdom like Faerghus, it seems like there wouldn’t be too many routes for people of common birth to be ennobled except by great feats of arms, and that is definitely _not_ implied to be the would-be fiancé’s forte. Thus, he is here a prosperous merchant, but he has not yet been ennobled and is hoping to attain a noble title, instead.
> 
> [ **CN/TW** : Kidnapping, discussion of human trafficking and slavery, xenophobia, xenophobic violence]

For the next month, Ingrid had a remedy for her disquiet, though she would be lying if she said that it pleased her. Ingrid did not know Flayn very well—Seteth had allowed her to attend Professor Manuela’s healing tutoring sessions, but not allowed her to attend training sessions in the training grounds—but Flayn had always seemed to Ingrid a trusting, delicate young girl, and her disappearance did not… Well, Ingrid could think of no innocuous reason as to why Flayn would have disappeared into thin air. As frustrated as she had at times seemed to be with her brother, Flayn had always struck Ingrid as the sort of person who would have confronted that frustration head-on, instead of doing something so indirect as running away, especially without any of her belongings besides the clothes on her back in tow.

Annette, who had befriended Flayn close to the beginning of the year, had also reported that Flayn hadn’t passed on _any_ plans of running away to _her_. So no, this did not seem like Flayn had run away, let alone Sylvain’s frankly appalling (she knew his feelings over Miklan’s death might have more power over him than he was letting on, but that was _no_ excuse for this) suggestion that Flayn might have _eloped_. Something was going on. Ingrid did not know what, but she didn’t think it was anything so innocent as running away or elopement.

Ingrid hadn’t paid too much heed to the rumors, you know. She had learned that there were _some_ rumors that she needed to pay attention to, but the talk of Death himself stalking the grounds at night just sounded like hysteria. The new rumor, that the curfews instituted after Flayn’s disappearance was _because_ Death was stalking the grounds, was absolute hysteria. It was hysteria, she was certain, but something was certainly going on.

Flayn was rescued (most certainly had _not_ run away) after a couple of weeks, but things did not quiet down, for she was in need of medical treatment, though what kind, no one knew, for Seteth would allow no visitors to see her. You would think that Professor Manuela would be treating Flayn, but Professor Manuela had been _stabbed_ , and one of her assistants was in charge of the infirmary until _she_ had recovered. On top of that, Flayn’s kidnapper and Professor Manuela’s attacker, an allegedly thoroughly intimidating-looking knight, though Ingrid sincerely doubted he was Death himself, had escaped capture and was still at large.

So. Flayn had been recovered, and no one had died. Things were most certainly not back to normal.

Things were not back to normal, and Ingrid would wonder later if that might not have had some impact on the way she at first responded to the letter she received from her father.

It had come into her hands early on a Friday morning, but not so early that Ingrid had time read it before she had to go to class. All throughout the lecture, it sat unopened in her satchel, burning a hole through the fabric and burning a hole through Ingrid’s mind, for she could guess, could just guess, what reason her father might have to write her a letter.

When Ingrid had first come here, she had envisioned that, oh, perhaps her father would find more than one reason to write to her. That perhaps he would want to know about her studies, or whether she had made any new friends while she was here. Maybe he’d like to know what the class’s plan of action was for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, or perhaps he would express worry for her safety while the trouble with the Western Church was still at its heights. That had turned out to be only a fantasy. She knew why it must be so. She knew why. Still, it sparked something hot and hard in the pit of her stomach whenever she was reminded that it had been nothing more than a fantasy of hers.

 _It is good that he is not here to see my reactions_ , Ingrid mused ruefully, once class had been dismissed for the day and she had passed by the door on her way out—she’d rather a bit more light for reading this by. _I suspect my reactions would only hurt him_.

No, she would not want to hurt her father, when he thought only of the good of their family, now would she?

Ingrid sucked in a deep breath, only realizing after her lungs were full that she was attempting to steady herself.

_‘My dearest Ingrid…’_

She noticed it before she noticed anything else: the untidy slant of her father’s handwriting. Father was very particular about his penmanship; for all that he insisted that parchment was a luxury they could not afford to squander needlessly, she had seen him throw away a piece of parchment he had been writing on if he happened to misspell so much as a single word. His standards for the neatness of his handwriting were hardly any less exacting. And yet, his handwriting in this letter was so messy that had the envelope not borne his seal, Ingrid was uncertain as to whether she would have recognized his handwriting at all.

Ingrid had seen a similarly untidy slant in his handwriting before. It typically signified that he had written his letter in great haste.

 _I hope there isn’t anything wrong_ , Ingrid thought, regretting suddenly the irritation that had washed over her when she received the letter this morning. One of her Schirmer relatives had been sick off and on for over a year, now. What if the letter pertained to them? There had been (unfortunate, inevitable) unrest in Kleiman territory, and as far as Ingrid knew, her youngest brother still served as a page in the viscount’s household. What if some ill had befallen Henrik?

As it quickly turned out, the letter did _not_ pertain to any of her Schirmer relatives, or the ongoing health problems thereof. Nor did it pertain to Henrik. Irritation turned out to have been the correct response, after all.

 _‘Two weeks prior, I was contacted by one Niklaus Kneller of Charon territory_.’ A gust of wind blustered down the green, folding over the parchment at the middle. Ingrid smoothed it back out, holding one hand at the head of the page and one hand at the foot to keep it open all the way, biting her lip as she did so. The name of the man sounded more fitting for someone from the Empire, but that was neither here nor there; it was hardly as though the border between the two lands was closed, and it wasn’t unheard of for people to move between the Kingdom and the Empire, especially if they weren’t nobility. Given the lack of a title in the description, she’d guess this Kneller person was not nobility. _‘He also has many dealings in Daphnel territory in the Alliance; this is how I first came into contact with him.’_

It was as Ingrid had first predicted. A prosperous merchant had come to her father seeking her hand in marriage. Evidently, the fact that this man had never met her presented no obstacle; he was amenable to a betrothal, if she was. Personally, Ingrid thought that once he met her, this man, no doubt expecting a lady from a tale, might be rather less amenable to the match than he thought he was, but she doubted her father would appreciate her raising that particular concern. She would just have to hope her parents did not take it too hard when Kneller took one look at her, shabbily-clothed and leanly-muscled, hands callused from long exercise with lance and sword, and suddenly remembered that he had an urgent appointment to keep, somewhere _very_ far away.

Kneller was apparently much beloved at court—then again, it was, if all the stories spoke true, rather easy to become a favorite of the Regent if you could provide him with whatever his capricious self desired on the given day and in the given hour. Father seemed to think that Kneller could be ennobled someday. Given that Dimitri would be taking up his throne in less than a year’s time, Ingrid was rather less optimistic on that score. Dimitri was rather less likely than his uncle to give out noble titles for petty services rendered.

So, another suitor had come to call. Yes, this one was prosperous, and yes, this one was still young (judging by what her father said, Ingrid would guess that Kneller was maybe ten years older than she was, which would certainly make him younger than many of the men who had come around the Galatea castle in the year before Ingrid left for Garreg Mach), but there was nothing that really made him stand out, compared to all the other men. She could not understand why her father spoke of him in such glowing tones, either; the last she’d checked, he was still pinning his hopes on seeing her married to a wealthy _nobleman_ , with connections to be leveraged that would no doubt prove sturdier than those of a merchant, however prosperous.

Ingrid got to the part of the letter where her father detailed the bride price Kneller was offering for her.

Her stomach dropped.

Suddenly, her father’s enthusiasm for the man made a great deal more sense.

And Ingrid thought she knew why Kneller was so ready for a betrothal, for a wedding, without having even seen her face.

“Miss Ingrid?”

The voice came to her distantly, but that was no surprise. The whole world felt distant, the green stretching out for miles; the already titanic grounds of the monastery felt larger than the royal palace and the city of Fhirdiad all rolled into one. Her own body felt as distant as the moon. That a voice might sound distant was no shock.

At length, Ingrid forced herself to turn, and found Professor Hanneman standing in the doorway, gazing down at her with an expression of surprisingly intense concern etched into his face. Ingrid forced a smile onto _her_ face, like etching the lines onto a block of wood with a spoon. “I’m sorry, Professor Hanneman. Am I blocking the way out?”

The concern that Ingrid had thought (hoped) would dissipate only deepened. “Oh, no, you are not in my way. May I ask what you are reading? I called for you three times before you answered.”

Ah… Yes, Ingrid supposed that would have been concerning.

She glanced back down at the parchment, willing the words to have somehow changed shape while she looked another way, but nothing doing; they spoke still of Kneller, and the exorbitant bride price he was willing to pay for her, and the words still breathed the unspoken ‘we are saved.’

There wouldn’t be any way around telling him, would there? No, there would not; there was a particularly stubborn gleam in Professor Hanneman’s eyes that made Ingrid think he would only bring it up the next time they crossed paths, if she demurred now.

He wouldn’t be surprised. Professor Hanneman knew that she was a noblewoman, and that she possessed a Crest. Ingrid doubted that any of this would be a surprise to him. That would make this easier. Ingrid drew a breath, and said, “I have received a letter from my father. He’s received an offer for my hand in marriage.”

The crisp nod and gleam of curiosity satisfied in Professor Hanneman’s eyes that Ingrid had expected never came. Instead, a deep frown scored itself into his face, even more markedly so than his earlier intense concern. “Is that so? I must admit, that is rather surprising to me.”

Ingrid blinked. “Is it? Most noblewomen do marry.” And very, very few of them ever became knights. No matter how much they wished for it.

“Indeed, they do. But I was never under the impression that noblewomen typically married so young in the Kingdom. Oh, yes, I am _aware_ that people typically marry at younger ages in the Kingdom than in the Empire, but I have never heard of one of my students marrying before they even reached their majority.”

No, he wouldn’t have, would he? If someone had married before reaching their majority, it was all but certain that they had far more pressing matters to deal with than seeking entry to the Officers Academy. If a girl was married before reaching her majority, she was likely too busy either trying to get pregnant or too busy _being_ pregnant to attend the Officers Academy.

Ingrid could have been pregnant, right now. She could have been nursing a child, right now. She could have been dead in childbed or childbed fever, right now. The realization that the thoughts did not alarm her came very close to breaking through the sense of distance enclosing her, for her mind still worked, and her mind understood that all of this should have provided for more in the way of alarm than it did. But the realization did not reach, the distance was not cracked, and the numbness that had crept over her after reading the letter stayed right where it was.

“It is uncommon,” she allowed. “In the Kingdom, we may only marry before reaching our majority with our guardians’ consent. Normally, we do not marry until a few years after our majority has passed us by, at least. But my circumstances aren’t common.”

“And what are those circumstances?”

Other people might have said that the arrival of other people on the scene had spared them from answering. To Ingrid, it did not feel as if she had been spared, not even slightly.

“Ingrid?” As distant as every noise sounded, Ingrid still immediately recognized Dorothea’s voice. She had never known a voice as instantly recognizable as Dorothea’s. “What’s wrong?”

Ingrid looked over her shoulder to see, as earlier indicated, Dorothea walking towards her. The Black Eagles must have been let out for the day; Ingrid had never heard of Dorothea skipping class. Though not as intense as Professor Hanneman’s, there was an unmistakable stamp of concern on Dorothea’s face, her brows knit.

Professor Melusine emerged from the classroom next, confirming that the lecture in that classroom had concluded. Immediately, her attention was on them, her mouth pressed into a thin line and her eyes darting between Dorothea, Professor Hanneman, and Ingrid herself. Something about the quality of her gaze made Ingrid wonder just how much she had heard.

Then, a third person exited the Black Eagles’ classroom, and Ingrid felt, for a moment, just a moment, something hard and hot and _mortified_ break through that cold, distant sense of isolation.

Edelgard looked back at her curiously, before she, too, walked over.

“Oh, hi, Dorothea,” Ingrid greeted her with a sigh. “And hello, Professor Melusine, Edelgard. Nothing’s the matter.” She picked at the parchment, without looking at it. “Well, nothing major.”

Truth be told, Ingrid hadn’t expected that to put Dorothea off the scent (She had fewer expectations of Professor Melusine or of Edelgard; she just… did not know what to expect). And sure enough, Dorothea did not seem at all appeased. “You don’t… _look_ like it’s nothing major.” She tilted her head downwards slightly, a hand going up to curl her hair around a finger, before Dorothea seemingly realized what she was doing, and stopped herself, forcing her hand to rest loosely at her side. Trying at lightness, “Then again, I suppose you always have a furrowed brow, don’t you?”

Ingrid snorted. She couldn’t find it in herself to be offended. Fair was fair. “There’s rather a lot going on around here, all the time.” She could feel Edelgard’s eyes on her. She did not look her way. “It seems that there’s always something to worry about.”

From the beginning of the year, it had been one thing after another. First, the house leaders had been attacked by bandits. Then, there had been Lord Lonato’s rebellion, and the cloud had had descended over Ashe, and the Western Church’s involvement in the whole affair. Then, news came of the Western Church’s planned attack on Garreg Mach and the Archbishop, throwing the monastery into an uproar. Then, came the actual attack, the revelation that Professor Melusine bore the lost Crest of Nemesis, and that the Sword of the Creator had both been hidden within the Holy Mausoleum, and that it was now in Professor Melusine’s possession. Straight on the heels of one revelation regarding a Hero’s Relic came a revelation regarding another. Came Miklan’s death, and the emotions that Ingrid _knew_ Sylvain wasn’t processing properly, no matter what he claimed. Then, Flayn was kidnapped, throwing the entire monastery into chaos _again_. And now, this.

There had come Ingrid’s confused, disordered, questioning thoughts, came her confused, disordered, questioning feelings. There had come Ashe’s treatment at the hands of the Central Church, Dorothea’s utterly _baseless_ teasing, Catherine’s words, Edelgard’s speculative ‘but what if we could change their minds?’ There had come Edelgard, the phenomenon that was the composed, illustrious Imperial princess, and everything, sharp-edged and bitter and poisonous, that Ingrid had shoved into the back of her mind, hiding behind walls of sleep and choking ivy and every brick she had made of her duty, to wall off everything inconsistent with it.

And now, this.

Now, this.

Professor Melusine drew closer, her head tilted to one side in that particular way it would fall when something had caught her attention firmly. “What’s worrying you right now?”

As far as pressure went, there wasn’t much. Outside of a class or training setting, when it came to Professor Melusine, there was never very much. But still, that gaze pinned Ingrid down, like pinning a beetle down beneath a glass. “Now?” She tried to smile, and her eyes drifted inexorably towards Edelgard as she made the attempt. Judging by just how high Edelgard’s eyebrows had shot up on her face, Ingrid didn’t think the attempt had been particularly convincing. “Oh, I really did not wish to bother you with such trivialities,” she tried instead.

“Nonsense,” Professor Hanneman huffed, and before Ingrid could say anything to dissuade him, he addressed Professor Melusine directly: “Ingrid was telling me of a man who has offered for her in marriage.”

“Is that so?” And now, Edelgard was part of the conversation, because the Goddess was determined not to let Ingrid get _through_ this conversation without it becoming as awkward as possible. Or perhaps it was the spirit of Nemesis, punishing the descendant of one of the warriors who had sided against him in battle. That sounded just as likely. “Do people living in the Kingdom really marry so young?”

Ingrid pulled a deep breath, willing the next admission to not feel like cutting herself open with a dull, rusty knife. “They do when their family is very poor, and their station in life prohibits them from any occupation that would see them selling their goods or their services for any amount of money.” It wouldn’t have been _proper_ , after all. But they must have impoverished noble families in the Empire; this could not be unheard-of to Edelgard. “And they do when they have a Crest that any suitors whose family does not possess one might want.”

“That sounds familiar,” Edelgard muttered, her jaw set.

Dorothea, further removed from that particular reality, said nothing, though the pinch of her lips hardly signified _happiness_. Professor Melusine, who had reportedly had little experience of the nobility before coming her, but had since then spent a good deal of time in the company of noble girls, visibly stiffened. Standing just outside Ingrid’s field of vision, Professor Hanneman made a surprisingly harsh noise in the back of his throat.

Taking it upon herself to break the silence that had suddenly fallen over the five of them, Dorothea held out her hand to Ingrid. “May I see the letter?” she ventured.

There was really no point in refusing her, when the bulk of the matter had already been revealed. It would have been rude, besides, as there was no information contained within that would have compromised House Galatea if it became known to someone outside the house. Ingrid handed the letter over, not bothering this time to smile. “Go right ahead.”

Momentarily, Professor Melusine’s eyes turned towards the parchment—Edelgard, meanwhile, had done more than just glance at it, coming up to stand at Dorothea’s left shoulder so that she could read the contents—but that reprieve proved short-lived. Once the moment had passed, her gaze was back on Ingrid, more intent than ever. “Have you ever met the suitor?”

Ingrid was not certain what she had expected less: the thrum of urgency undergirding Professor Melusine’s voice, or just how _soft_ the tone with which she expressed that urgency was. “I… have not. My father speaks of him at length in the letter, though. He is a prosperous merchant, either from the Kingdom or Daphnel territory in the Alliance; the letter wasn’t very clear on that point. He’s well connected within the royal court, and high in the Regent’s favor. My father believes he may be ennobled someday.” And in mixed company, Ingrid would keep her thoughts on the likelihood of that actually happening to herself.

Another faint tilt of the head from Professor Melusine. “If the two of you have never met, how did he come to ask for your hand?”

Sometimes, Ingrid wondered what it would have been like to have grown to womanhood, maintaining that sort of innocence. Sometimes, she thought it would not have been so terrible a thing. “It is all well and good to be a prosperous merchant, with a chance of ennoblement in your future, but if he is granted a title, his house will be lacking in prestige. It’s most likely that he wants the Crest of Daphnel that I bear to adorn his family name.”

Once upon a time, there had been a man who did not want that. Once upon a time, there had been a man who saw value in her that did not originate either in her Crest or in her ability to produce Crest-bearing children. But he was gone, now, and there had never been a man since who had cared about anything but those. Kneller did not know her; he had never seen her face. Ingrid could not guess at what else he _would_ want, besides her blood.

Dorothea clicked her tongue. “Hmm, yes, that sounds about right,” she remarked. But then, the quality of her voice changed drastically. “The jerk.”

Venom had flooded into Dorothea’s voice on those words, caustic and baleful. Isolation was starting to fall away, and Ingrid felt unease start to wrap around herself as she looked Dorothea over. “You sound as though you know him. Do you?”

An indelicate snort reverberated in the air around Dorothea’s mouth. “Yes, I must admit that I do know him.” And just judging by her tone, Ingrid would be hard-pressed in this moment to find someone who regretted knowing someone else more than Dorothea seemed to regret knowing Kneller. “He tried to court me when I was a singer.” Her nose wrinkled, eyes shining with a hard, bright light, like sunlight off of a dagger. “Best advice I can give you, Ingrid? Stay far, _far_ away from this guy.”

Oh, yes, that sense of distant isolation was gone, now, like ash in the wind. The world felt now like it was crashing down on her, the walls she’d built up in the back of her mind closing around her and crumbling at the same time, a decaying oubliette that, when it caved in, would leave her trapped in the dark. “He’s offered a sizeable dowry—“ and she barely thought to be grateful that none of them thought to point out that it wasn’t prospective grooms who offered dowries “—so I must at least consider it—for the sake of my family.”

‘Consider it,’ nothing. If negotiations had progressed to the point that Kneller was offering a bride price, they must have progressed very far, indeed. And a bridge price like the one Kneller was offering, Ingrid knew just how likely it was that her family would ever receive an offer like that again. She _had_ to accept. The law might prevent her father from dragging her unwilling to the wedding altar, but Ingrid knew how upset it would make both of her parents if she refused Kneller. She had to accept him.

Accept him, and House Galatea would be saved. Her grandmother wouldn’t have to take ‘extended stays’ with her own natal family to avoid putting strain on the family’s dinner table. Séverin and Marcel might actually be able to follow the tourney circuit around because they wanted to fight in the tourney, not because they were desperate to pick up prize money. Henrik would never carry the pinch of hunger in his cheeks again, would grow up never knowing want again. With the money, her brothers might even be able to get married themselves, wealth making up for their lack of a Crest.

That Kneller had behaved in ways Dorothea personally found objectionable, be he rude or thoughtless or mean-spirited, would matter little to Ingrid’s father. He did not know Dorothea as Ingrid knew Dorothea; he would never take the word of a commoner from distant Enbarr as sufficient cause to terminate negotiations. Count Galatea must think of the good of House Galatea as a whole. A son-in-law with a few negative aspects to his personality was a small price to pay in exchange for granting the house the kind of prosperity it had never before enjoyed.

(Her brothers were asked to make no such— No, that was not a thought fit for the light of day. But no matter how Ingrid knew that she should not acknowledge it, she could not banish the thorn of the thought from where it sat, stubbornly pricking her heart.)

Maybe… Perhaps it would not be so bad. Maybe Kneller had changed since Dorothea had known him. Maybe whatever it was he had done to offend her, he had done because he thought Dorothea someone who it would not harm his reputation to offend—that would hardly have spoken _well_ of him, but it was a behavior that could have been corrected, in time. It was Ingrid’s duty to accept her husband, warts and all. It was her duty to accept him, no matter his flaws or his foibles. She knew that. She had always known that. Maybe it would be alright.

Already, Ingrid could feel her bruised, battered dreams of becoming a knight slipping away from her. If Kneller had been a nobleman from an old, well-established house, he could have accepted a wife with a few foibles of her own. He could have weathered the stir it would cause when his wife, who should have been devoting all of her attention to bearing and raising his children, to the running of his castle, to charitable works in his territory, took up martial pursuits, instead. But a prosperous merchant seeking ennoblement could not weather that kind of stir. Ingrid was supposed to be one more stepping-stone on Kneller’s journey to a noble title and a castle of his own. She was supposed to be the perfect noble wife whose presence on his arm would demonstrate that Niklaus Kneller was worthy of more than what he had been born to. In order for Ingrid to be what she must be for him, she had to _be_ a proper lady. No whisper could be breathed in the royal court regarding her ‘foibles.’

Could she do that? Could she really live like that, for the next five years, the next ten? Could she live like that, perhaps for the rest of her life?

 _Maybe it won’t be so bad_ , she told herself, and all the while, her stomach dropped, and dropped again.

Her face must not have been a perfect map to her feelings in all things, today, for no one had discerned her thoughts and turned to her with renewed concern. It would seem there was room in the world for small mercies, today.

Instead, Edelgard was regarding Dorothea with some curiosity, that curiosity wrapped up in a furrowed brow, pursed lips, folded arms. “I must admit, Dorothea, you are better-connected than even I had thought. I’m curious as to how a merchant from either the Kingdom or the Alliance happened to enter your orbit, all the way in Enbarr—and this would have been _before_ he found favor with the Kingdom’s Regent, would it not?”

Professor Hanneman echoed the question. Professor Melusine nodded, and Ingrid would admit to some curiosity on that score, herself. She did not know how it worked in the Alliance, but she knew from the exorbitant price of Enbarr goods just how rare it was for Kingdom merchants to make the journey that far south, or Imperial merchants that far north. Was that how Kneller had won favor with Regent Rufus, perhaps? The man _was_ a libertine, after all, and his whims were hardly limited to women and drink. Something from Enbarr, something he couldn’t get from anyone else?

Later, Ingrid would wish it was something so innocuous as that. Later, she would wish it was just a matter of Kneller procuring opium or southern liquors for Regent Rufus’s pleasure. Later, she would wish so many things.

In the present, when Ingrid did not yet know just how many wishes would infect her mind, Dorothea’s posture was changing. Subtle, at first, it soon became impossible not to notice. Gone was the self-possessed, almost brashly confident (but never entirely brash; she was too elegant for brashness) young woman Ingrid had known. In her place there stood someone less confident, more furtive, someone who looked like they’d rather shrink from peoples’ stares than embrace their attention.

“Well, that would be because Niklaus is from Enbarr,” Dorothea muttered. “And none of you know what he’s done.” She fixed Ingrid in a piercing stare. “If you knew, there wouldn’t be any question of accepting his proposal; you’d shut the door on him so fast the hinges would break. If your father knew, he would never have written this letter in the first place. If you accept him, every coin he gives your father will be soaked—“ her lips popped on the syllable “—in—“ every syllable now was given that same careful, deliberate pronunciation “—blood.”

Much the same could be said—had been said, by their enemies—of knights who had made their fortunes ransoming wealthy prisoners, or by taking into their possession the armor, jewelry, and horses of their slain foes. Ingrid had never wanted to be a knight like that, even as it became increasingly plain that the only knights who could truly call themselves rich were _all_ like that.

 _But what does a merchant have to do, for others to say the same thing of him?_ Ingrid wondered uneasily.

Only one way to find out.

“What do you mean?”

Dorothea shook her head violently. “Not out here. Call me paranoid, but I don’t want to talk about it where people can hear us.” Her gaze shifted to Professor Hanneman. “Professor Hanneman, do you mind if we go in your classroom to talk about this?”

At that, Professor Hanneman nearly leapt back from where he had been standing in the doorway to the Blue Lions’ classroom, sweeping an arm out from his side. “By all means. This room may not be as secure as the likes of the Holy Tomb, but the doors do lock, and I can guarantee you will find no eavesdroppers within.”

So they all filed into the classroom, the only sound besides the clicks of their footsteps the jangle of the keys as Professor Hanneman ensured that the door was properly locked behind them. Dorothea caught Ingrid’s eye, pale and resolute and grim, and Ingrid felt trepidation edge its way into her belly.

What could Dorothea have to tell her about Niklaus Kneller that was so terrible?

Ingrid and Edelgard sat down besides each other at one of the tables, as Dorothea perched uneasily on the table in front of them. Professor Hanneman took a seat at his desk at the front of the room; Professor Melusine leaned against the nearest pillar, her arms folded across her chest, eyes bright and watchful.

“I…” Dorothea breathed deep, her shoulders shuddering. “…I met Niklaus two and a half, maybe three years ago. There were a lot of men buzzing around me when I was a diva at the opera house, so I didn’t pay too much attention to him at first. He hadn’t done anything to set himself apart, and I spent so much of my time rehearsing for the next show that I had to be pretty picky about who I spent my spare time with.

“Niklaus was persistent. Most of these men would flit away once it was clear to them there were other girls who would pay them attention, but Niklaus seemed interested in me in particular. Well, that and he didn’t try to win my favor with red roses. Red roses were _very_ popular in Enbarr as a gift for a lady you were trying to woo, back then—I suppose white roses just weren’t good enough for some reason—but I’ve never been terribly fond of flowers. They’re just a bit…” Dorothea shrugged her shoulders, right hand held palm up towards the ceiling. “…Hackneyed.

“So, we had supper at some of the swankier inns nearby Mittelfrank. I let him drive me around in his carriage. I said all the things an opera singer was supposed to say to a wealthy patron of her opera house who had taken interest in her. I hoped he wouldn’t take it to indicate anything beyond friendship—even then, there was something about him that just destroyed the idea of anything romantic."

Maybe Ingrid should judge. The idea of doing so had occurred to her before. But she still just _couldn’t_. It bore too close of a resemblance to her own interactions with all her suitors of days past: making yourself as agreeable as possible, hoping that this one, _this one_ might be the one to lift her family out of poverty. Dorothea, as far as Ingrid knew, had no guardians to properly evaluate her suitors before allowing them access to her. She would have had to do that herself, and that she was still here signified that she had done it properly, even if some feathers might have been ruffled in the process. To criticize Dorothea would have been to heap scorn upon herself.

“I was not interested in anything but friendship, but Niklaus couldn’t quite seem to grasp that point. He wasn’t as pushy as some of the _other_ guys who weren’t willing to grasp the point, so I let him keep talking to me.” The resolve that had hardened her face faltered. “My position wasn’t so secure that I could risk making my managers angry without a very good reason.

“Well, we got to talking one night. I remember, it was late spring. It had just rained, and the air still smelled of rainwater. We’d both had a little to drink. I’d forgotten to bring something to water down the wine with, and I was a bit tipsier than I cared to be, but Niklaus had had a bit _more_ to drink, and the man turned out to be a pretty cheap drunk. So, me being tipsy and feeling a little too brave for my own good, I decided to ask him something.

“Niklaus was pretty well-known around Mittelfrank by then, and one thing no one had ever been able to figure out was just how he had made his money. He wasn’t from a wealthy family, and he hadn’t inherited his business from a successful master. He was only about ten years older than I was, and there weren’t too many ways for such a young merchant to become so wealthy without having inherited the money.

“When I asked him, he just—“ her face screwed up “—laughed. ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to make money if you know what people want, you know how to give it to them, and it’s something they could never have gotten from anyone else.’ He laughed again, and if I’d been sober, I think that laugh would have had me flying out the door. It was such an empty laugh.”

Dorothea fell silent, wringing her hands in her lap. She did not meet anyone’s gaze, her long hair spilling over her face and her shoulders as a veil. The longer her silence persisted, the thicker the atmosphere of unease in the room became. When had Dorothea ever hesitated so to speak? When had words ever stopped themselves in her mouth? What could she have to say that was so terrible?

What could she have to say that was so terrible that it could silence her like this?

Professor Melusine roused herself to speak for what felt like the first time in an eternity. “But there is more to it than that, isn’t there.” It was not a question. There was nothing in it that had any of the blood of a question. “You would not come to us if you had nothing more than that.”

After another long, uncomfortable moment, Dorothea nodded choppily. “He really was a cheap drunk—just completely forgot he shouldn’t say every last stupid thing that came to mind. He also completely forgot there were some things he shouldn’t be telling _anyone_ once he got some wine into him. Sometimes, I wonder how a man like that could be so careless. Then again, it’s not like I ever _told_ anyone what he told me. I didn’t think anyone would believe it, and I was—“ she smiled bitterly “—frightened. So maybe he wasn’t _that_ stupid.

“He laughed some more, and knocked back another glass of wine. ‘It’s so easy to make money,’ he said, ‘when you deal in people.’”

The classroom promptly erupted.

“What?! He did _what_?!” Ingrid barely recognized the timbre of her voice, but what was bubbling up in her stomach, she recognized all too well.

Was it rage, or revulsion, or fear? It could well have been a combination of two, or perhaps all three. She’d not felt it in years, not since she shared a stand with an adolescent boy who watched an injured knight be carried off the field and responded with raucous laughter. She’d not felt it in years, but when it returned, she knew it immediately, like an old friend come to sit beside her. But oh, she could not put a name to it, not a proper name.

As the words sank further and further in, Ingrid felt colder and colder, smaller and smaller. As she thought of it, she dreaded meeting this man more and more.

Fear, maybe. Fear to turn a girl who wished to become a knight into a damsel in distress from a tale, except that all the distaste had come from within.

Could this make her so weak?

 _I must not let it rule me._ Ingrid’s hands shook in her lap. _I must not let it overpower me. I am stronger than this fear._

She must be stronger than this fear.

While Ingrid was bending her attention to overcoming her fear, to staying present in this moment, the world had not stopped moving. Her companions’ _mouths_ hadn’t stopped moving.

Dorothea had no doubt had far more many people’s full, undivided attention on her at once in her time. Ingrid didn’t know a whole lot about the opera, but performing as an opera singer in an opera house in the largest city in Fódlan must have provided her with plenty of experience dealing with multitudes of eyes focusing on her at once. It showed here, for she was dealing with the sudden influx of questions better than Ingrid would have in her place, especially considering the content.

Edelgard and Professor Hanneman were both bristling. The former held all of it in her eyes, all of her anger finely focused on the twin points of her pupils, radiant and terrible to behold. Professor Hanneman’s anger was not quite so… for lack of better word, _impressive_ , but it was far more immediately noticeable. It would have been difficult not to notice just how much he had puffed up, like an angry cat with its fur standing on end. They peppered her with questions, and she answered each in turn as best she could, keeping up with questions asked over each other better than most would have in her place.

But it wasn’t until Professor Melusine spoke up that Ingrid began to really register anything that was being said. “What exactly did he tell you?” she pressed, voice sharp as a razor blade. “Under what circumstances was he ‘dealing in people?’”

Abruptly, Edelgard and Professor Hanneman fell silent, as if Professor Melusine was teacher to student and colleague alike, and that teacher had just admonished the class for speaking without leave. It wasn’t a skill Ingrid would have expected a mercenary to possess, but she certainly seemed to know how to put it to good use. It made Ingrid wonder what an average day in the Black Eagles’ classroom looked like.

…That she could wonder about such mundane things was, most likely, not a good sign.

“You know about the war between the Empire and Dagda and Brigid, don’t you?” When Professor Melusine nodded, Dorothea went on hastily, “After the war ended, the Empire destroyed all of their ships. Anyone from Dagda or Brigid who was still in Fódlan by then had no way to get home, not for a long time. It was years before any merchant ships docked in Enbarr were willing to travel to Brigid or _especially_ Dagda.

“Well, you’ve got a lot of people from Brigid and Dagda who were stuck in the Empire. A lot of them were taken as prisoners or war, but the ones who weren’t arrested weren’t exactly what I’d call _safe_.

“It wasn’t a great time to be a foreigner in the Empire, in general. Enbarr’s a port city, and I’ve _heard_ it has the largest number of foreigners living in it of anywhere in Fódlan, though it’s not like I’ve been to too many other places, so who knows?”

Ingrid remembered reading much the same of Enbarr. But she thought she might have read that before the massacre in Duscur, before the few who escaped the blood-soaked, salted lands reportedly made their way into the slums of Fhirdiad, away from prying eyes and hungry blades. Who could say for sure?

“They lived in Enbarr, and they were tolerated, but I don’t think they were ever especially well-liked. The guards always sneered at them and watched them _very_ closely when they went into shops. Every priest on every street corner would rant at everyone who would listen about how the ‘demon worshippers’—“ her voice fluttered in a jarringly airy tone of complete and total disdain “—were defiling the City of Seiros with their very presence. Stuff like that.

“Once the war got started, it only got worse. I remember sitting out by a fountain one day, and watching as a bunch of guards—there must have been at least five or six of them—just walked up to a man passing through the square and started beating him with the shafts of their lances.” She laughed shakily, throat fluttering. “I didn’t understand what was going on; sure, a lot of guards in Enbarr are petty little thugs who’d be better off on the other side of their prison cells, but just walking up to someone in broad daylight, in a busy square, and beating him to the ground in front of dozens of witnesses and with no apparent provocation? That was… new.”

Professor Hanneman scrubbed his forehead and sighed heavily. “It isn’t quite as new as you might believe, Miss Dorothea.”

That was news to Dorothea, it seemed. She craned around to look at him, hands braced on the edge of the table for balance. “Really? It sounds like you have some stories to tell.”

What passed over Professor Hanneman’s face was not something Ingrid could name, but it certainly was not _cheerful_. “Indeed, I do. But they aren’t happy stories, and now is not the time. Do go on.”

“Right. At the time, he was a stranger who was being beaten into the ground for no reason that I could see. I… suppose I should have said something.” She shifted her weight from one haunch to the other. “But I was young, and I’d gotten enough knocks from the butts of the guards’ lances that I always felt much safer when they didn’t know I was there. So I didn’t say anything. Once they were done, they just left him there on the flagstones. He lied there for a few minutes before getting up; no one tried to _help_ him get up.” She kicked her right leg backwards under the table. “ _I_ didn’t try to help him get up. After he was gone, there was this outline where his body had been; the blood already looked like rust. At the time, he was a stranger. I didn’t find out until later that he was also an Almyran merchant. The war continued, and I heard of more incidents like that, all over the city, though in the nicer parts of Enbarr, it was more likely to happen in people’s homes than out in the streets in broad daylight.”

 _Are there no true knights anywhere in the Empire?_ Ingrid imagined the scene Dorothea had described, finding she could imagine it all too easily. The copper tang of blood clung to the roof of her mouth. _Is there not so much as one true knight in the city of Enbarr? How could they let such a thing happen?_

_How could a knight kill a child just because they were serving as a novice in the wrong church?_

“Now, you’d _think_ that once the war was over, things would start to die down, but nope!” Dorothea shrugged again, both arms bent at the elbow and facing away from her body, left and right, both palms turned up towards the ceiling. It was a decidedly affected gesture, and made Ingrid think of performers on stages, acting out gestures that had to be visible to audience members in the very back of the stands. “Things absolutely did not die down.” Her eyes fell on Edelgard. “Edie… do you remember what happened to the Morfis enclave?”

“Vividly,” Edelgard replied, in clipped tones. “The flames were visible from the royal palace.”

Dorothea squeezed her eyes shut. “That far, huh? Do you know if they ever caught the ones who did it?”

Now, it was Edelgard’s turn to shift her weight in her chair, though the action was subtler than Dorothea’s had been; Ingrid did not think she would have noticed it, had she not been sitting so close by Edelgard. “No, I do not think they did. There was not a great deal of…” Her eyes shone bright out of the stony mask of her face. “…Urgency assigned to the task.”

“’Not a great deal of urgency,’” Dorothea mouthed, her lip curling as if she’d eaten something incredibly bitter. “I wish I could say that surprises me. But really, it doesn’t. Not one little bit.”

Edelgard regarded her, with furrowed brow and hands clenched in fists. “I am sorry for that.”

“Why are _you_ sorry?” Dorothea probed, her mouth twisting in a crooked, perplexed line. “You were a little girl during the war; I don’t understand what you _could_ have done.”

Edelgard did not answer.

There was a part of Ingrid that wondered just what they were talking about. There was another part of her that reasoned that she could find out later. Yet another part of her questioned whether she wanted to know about it at all.

Ignorance would profit her nothing. She ought to find out what that was about.

(And later, she would find out what they meant, and the fate of the Morfis enclave would become a new resident among her most prominent, most visceral nightmares.)

“Things being the way they were,” Dorothea went on, “the Empire was a dangerous place to be for anyone from Brigid or Dagda.” It made Ingrid wonder what life in the Empire had been like for Petra. “Anyone taken prisoner was either ransomed or killed, and the people who hadn’t been taken prisoner were having a rough time finding work, let alone a safe place to live. They get desperate.” Dorothea picked at her skirt. Her eyes had grown very bright, but not with the hardness of a blade. “Desperate people make mistakes. And in the months after the war ended, a lot of people’s biggest mistakes was trusting Niklaus.

“This is how he said he did it. He went to cities all around the Empire, and visited the slums offering work to anyone who would listen. Niklaus made a special point of offering the work to Brigid and Dagdan refugees, when no one else would. And then, whenever he managed to get enough people to take him up on his offer, he’d tell them to go somewhere outside of the city and wait. It was usually a crossroads, sometimes an empty field, and _always_ somewhere witnesses weren’t likely to show up. Then, they’d be ambushed by soldiers, put in chains, and taken away to be used as forced labor in the nearest lord’s fields or household, and that lord would pay Niklaus a fat sum of gold for finding ‘free labor’ for him.” Dorothea swallowed hard, her shoulders hunched. “He talked about it all like he was talking about the weather. The only good thing to come out of that conversation is that I _don’t_ think he remembers what he told me. At least, I don’t think any of the kidnapping attempts were his idea.”

“Kidnapping attempts?” Professor Hanneman asked faintly.

Dorothea swiveled around to look his way. “Oh, yes. Divas at the opera house have to deal with that sort of thing all the time.” Her voice was light. Or, at least, it was something trying to seem like it was light. “Didn’t Manuela tell you?”

All of a sudden, Professor Hanneman was looking a little paler than usual. “She most certainly did not.”

 _Kidnapping attempts_. Ingrid supposed she could chalk that up as the latest in a long list of at-least mildly disturbing things she had discovered regarding Dorothea’s life in Enbarr.

Dorothea turned back to face Ingrid and Edelgard, wearing on her face a smile that at some point in its short lifespan had curdled and turned just a touch rancid.

At length, Ingrid found her voice once more. “You speak of slavery. But slavery is _illegal_ in Fódlan; the sentence for it is death. If he spoke the truth, how is it that no one has caught him before now?”

She didn’t know what she was hoping for. If this was a true, accurate account of how Niklaus Kneller had made the foundation of his wealth, he’d been stunningly brazen in how he’d gone about it. He’d lured those people into slavery personally, without using a go-between, and it seemed very much as though he hadn’t used a go-between when negotiating with or collecting payment from those corrupt lords. How on earth had he never been exposed?

It wasn’t Dorothea who answered that question, but Professor Hanneman. He sighed wearily, shaking his head and looking suddenly far older than his years would have suggested. “I am afraid I have known many a corrupt official in Enbarr. It took little to convince them to look the other way when certain abuses were taking place.” And if Ingrid was to judge by how much his voice had hardened, she would guess that he had had some experience of these ‘abuses.’ (Given that he was her professor, asking for details would have been inappropriate. Curiosity would have to go unsated, in this case.) “I would not be surprised to learn that such is true all over the Empire.”

Beside Ingrid, Edelgard was nodding grimly. The Imperial princess might know something a former nobleman who had been away from the Empire for more than ten years didn’t, regarding corruption among government officials.

But Ingrid wasn’t done. “Alright. Even if Kneller was able to find all the right officials to bribe, what of the _Church_? Slavery was outlawed by a previous Archbishop; the Church has prosecuted offenders zealously ever since. How did the Church never discover what he was doing?”

To that, Ingrid received a trio of answers, each more depressing than the last.

“It is the Ministry of Religion that holds sway in the Empire,” Professor Hanneman explained. He twisted a quill pen in his hands. “The Southern Church was disbanded long ago; the Church holds very little political power anywhere in the Empire.”

Dorothea shrugged dismissively. “Priests can be bribed, too.”

Edelgard caught Ingrid’s eye. “I know it’s difficult for you to believe,” she said softly, “but consider who those people are. You heard Dorothea earlier, and you must have seen it for yourself in the Kingdom. To the priests of the Church of Seiros, all foreigners are demon worshippers, beyond any hope of salvation.” Her face hardened, barely perceptibly, “And I do not doubt that you have seen the way the monks have treated certain of our classmates.”

Dedue. She had to be speaking of Dedue. Petra might otherwise have been a target for the whispers and hostility Dedue endured, but between Edelgard’s firm expressions of care and friendship and Hubert’s glares and insinuations, the monks and nuns and priests of Garreg Mach had early on thought better of targeting her. And as for Dedue, Ingrid had ignored it, at first, and now wondered if she would ever live down the shame of having ignored it at all. She was not ignoring it now; it would have been very difficult to, considering how many of the monks had openly asserted that Dedue must be involved some way with Flayn’s kidnapping, which… No. Even when she had been looking at him in the most uncharitable light possible, she would not have suspected him of that. She’d been blinkered, but not _that_ blinkered, and not that stubbornly determined to _remain_ blinkered.

Silently, Ingrid nodded.

Edelgard nodded in turn. “To the Church of Seiros, foreigners are beneath their concern, and beneath their care. They do not care what becomes of them.”

Part of Ingrid wanted to protest that. It was well known that Cyril, one of the children living in the monastery, was an Almyran. It had come out the month before that one of the knights, Shamir, hailed from Dagda. Would they have been allowed to live here if the Church truly hated all foreigners? If the Archbishop, whom all the Church took example from, truly hated all foreigners?

But the Archbishop had made no attempt at intervention when the vengeful forces of the Kingdom moved to slaughter every man, woman, and child in Duscur, despite the fact that it would have been impossible for _all_ of them to have been involved in the attack on King Lambert’s party. The Archbishop did not appear to have made any attempt at intervention when such violence as Dorothea described had broken out in the Empire. Even if the Central Church had little power in the Empire, she could still at least have made _protest_. But if anyone was going to know about such protests, it was Edelgard, and she had said nothing of them.

Shamir’s identity as a Dagdan had only come to light when, just like Dedue, she had been accused of involvement in Flayn’s kidnapping. Ingrid had heard more than one monk whisper dubiously about Cyril, wondering just what the boy’s “intentions” were in coming to the monastery, despite the fact that Ingrid, just looking at him, would guess his age to be around ten or eleven (If he was any older than that, then he was appallingly malnourished, considering he was living in a place that was never, _ever_ short of food).

Shamir was a renowned warrior, an archer of incomparable skill. Any fighting force in the world would have been champing at the bit to have her among their ranks. So long as it was within the bounds of his own physical strength, there didn’t seem to be so much as a single task set to him that Cyril couldn’t carry out. He knew exactly how to care for every last plant in the greenhouse. He could chop firewood more quickly than men twice his age. He cleaned floors far more quickly than any of the other children working in the monastery, and he could run messages better than some of the priests, who’d been living here for more than thirty years and who you’d think would have known the guards well enough to do the task just as well as this child. And Ingrid had served alongside Cyril in the stables often enough to admire his skill with the horses and the pegasi, the latter of whom were largely nervous around boys and men.

What if Shamir was not a great warrior? What if she had come to Garreg Mach with a crippled arm, rendering her incapable of wielding a bow? What if Cyril had not been immensely talented at any work he set his mind to? What if he’d had a skillset more plausible for a boy of his age? Would the whispers and suspicions of the monks and priests and nuns of Garreg Mach have then held more sway?

Ingrid had wondered if the Central Church and the Archbishop would have allowed Shamir and Cyril to live here if they truly hated all foreigners. She did not think now that that had been the correct question to ask. Church doctrine was firm on the point that the world outside of Fódlan was base and corrupt, and that those who came from the outside world were of no concern to the faithful, except when they invaded Fódlan with war and death. That much was not ambiguous.

No, Ingrid had found a more pertinent question to ask.

Had Shamir and Cyril not proven themselves so indispensable, had they not been so _useful_ , would they still have been allowed to live in Garreg Mach?

She didn’t know. Such a lack of knowledge was not what she would call comforting.

There was something else she had to concern herself with, as well.

“This is all fine and good.” Actually, no, it wasn’t, it was about as far as possible from being fine, but moving on… “But my father will not accept it without proof. I need to have solid evidence to take to him, if I wish to have any hope of the negotiations being terminated without a proposal.”

Had her father heard rumors of Kneller’s purported misdeeds? Ingrid’s stomach churned, so violently that she swallowed down against the promise of her gorge rising in her throat. No, he wouldn’t have done that. If he’d heard rumors of abductions and trafficking and slavery swirling around Niklaus Kneller, _surely_ he wouldn’t have given Kneller’s suit the time of day.

_He’s been so desperate for me to marry well. He was practically over the moon in the letter when he named the figure Kneller was willing to pay._

Such thoughts were unworthy of her. There was no way her father knew anything about this. He would _never_ have sought to bind her to a man who, if the tales were true, was a monster bound in human flesh. He wouldn’t have sacrificed House Galatea’s honor for money. He wouldn’t have sacrificed _her_ for money.

“When I knew him, he had offices in Daphnel territory,” Dorothea volunteered. “I think it’s worth a shot to see if he’d still using those offices.”

Professor Melusine frowned intensely. “Do you know where in Daphnel territory? It will expedite the process considerably.”

Ingrid’s eye darted between Dorothea and Professor Melusine. Process?

“I think so. It was something like Edun, or Aidell…”

“Aidunn?”

“Yes, that. That’s the one.”

Ingrid thought she had heard the name before. Traveling to Daphnel territory was a little… awkward for House Galatea, but she thought Aidunn was the name of a town close to the border.

That was days away from here, at best speed. How would she ever find the time to go to Aidunn to seek answers?

So decisive was Professor Melusine’s nod that Ingrid’s attention was drawn completely to her. “Very well.” She turned her attention to Ingrid. “I have recently obtained permission from the Archbishop to take students on long-term excursions outside of the monastery, for a period lasting up to ten days. Students from other classes need only obtain permission from their professor. Hanneman?”

Professor Hanneman nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course.”

The ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of Professor Melusine’s mouth. “Good; we’ll need you to help with our cover story.” The ghost of her smile proceeded to die anew. “I am uncertain that Rhea would consider this a worthy use of our time.”

No, she most likely would not, and Ingrid was not certain she could blame her. The students of the Officers Academy were supposed to be learning combat training, history and diplomacy and battle tactics, not attending to their petty personal matters. The Archbishop would no doubt consider it doubly wasteful for an entire class of students to spend days and days attending to the personal troubles of just one of their classmates.

Wasteful as it was, Ingrid could not find it in herself to protest against it. Maybe that made her selfish. Maybe.

“Count me in.” Dorothea had straightened on her perch on top of the table, jaw set. “If there’s any way I can help, I will. I don’t think I could stand the idea of this guy getting his claws into any girl—“ her eyes lit on Ingrid, a faint smile gracing her lips “—let alone you. I don’t think you’d be happy with him a single day of your life, even if he treated you better than those poor people he sold off.”

“I probably wouldn’t, at that,” Ingrid murmured.

If the charges laid against him were true.

But she would likely have never been happy with Kneller, anyways, not when marriage to him would certainly have spelled the death of all of her dreams. When she had had no reason to doubt that he was a morally upright man, that was an acceptable sacrifice to make for the good of House Galatea. When she did have reason to doubt, it was no longer such an acceptable sacrifice.

_Then why aren’t you more regretful of the idea that you might not marry him, after all?_

“I’ll speak to the rest of our class,” Edelgard said suddenly. She was looking ahead at Professor Melusine when Ingrid turned to stare at her, and for all the world seemed to think it the most natural thing possible to say. “I am certain they will be willing to accompany us.”

Ingrid felt her face grow hot. “You should not trouble yourself like that.”

Edelgard stared at her, brows raised quizzically. “I should, actually. If it comforts you, my motives are not strictly altruistic.” Her voice hardened. “This Niklaus Kneller conducted his alleged crimes within Imperial territory; I consider it in my interest to seek more information on this matter.” More gently, Edelgard added, “A marriage is not the easiest thing to extricate yourself from. I know what it means to be obligated to marry for duty. If proof of Kneller’s wrongdoings come to light after you have already married him, the consequences for you and your family could be dire.”

They held each other’s gazes for several long, charged moments. Gone was the polite indifference with which Edelgard had regarded Ingrid just a few days ago. Now, there was a light and an interest Ingrid had not realized she missed, until she was basking in it. Beyond that, though, there was concern of a nature that Ingrid had never before seen firing Edelgard’s eyes, something that verged almost on desperation.

Ingrid had never before seen Edelgard look at her with such intensity.

She nodded.

As the others discussed travel plans, Ingrid occasionally chiming in when information was needed regarding the Kingdom that Professor Melusine could not provide, Ingrid’s pulse began to race. A presage, perhaps, of just how they would have to race to reach Aidunn, stay there long enough to uncover any damning information that might exist, and then return to Garreg Mach within ten days.

She knew not what she hoped for. She knew not what she expected to _find_. But ignorance had never served Ingrid well, and now, she felt herself to be in far more danger from what she did not know than what she did.

She just hoped that no revelations would come capable of burying her.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : discussion of kidnapping; harmful gender roles; discussion of forced marriage; discussion of human trafficking and slavery]

“It gives me happiness to be seeing more of the land of Fódlan,” Petra called out, her voice nearly lost to the howling wind that ever made the Oghma Mountains its home. Her cheeks were a bright red, heavily chapped after hours facing that wind head on. “I am thinking it would be giving me greater happiness if I could be seeing this land when it has less cold.”

Ingrid laughed, the bright noise bubbling up in her mouth surprising even herself. She called back, having to shout to make herself heard over the wind, “Welcome to the Kingdom! High summer came and went about three months ago. We might see snow on our journey back to the monastery.”

Petra said nothing, but the expression on her face spoke vividly for her opinion on such a matter. Ingrid had learned on this trip that Brigid was that distant southern land the wild wyverns of Fódlan flocked towards when the weather turned cold. Ingrid couldn’t help but wonder what winters in such a land must be like; they must certainly be a far, _far_ cry from the winters she had known.

Far below, Professor Melusine called to them, “Petra, Ingrid, don’t fly too far ahead. We won’t be able to reach you if aught goes amiss.”

Such had been spoken, advised, commanded, and Ingrid sighed, shaking her head as she reined in her pegasus, putting her to a more sedate pace. She caught snatches of a conversation—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a one-sided argument—between Ferdinand and Hubert as they rode just behind Edelgard, and a hint of laughter in the covered wagon serving as their baggage train that could have been Linhardt or Caspar. Dorothea was singing something she couldn’t make out, and the occasional, barely audible strains of a second voice signaled Bernadetta catching a few verses.

It had been two days since they had left for Aidunn. Ingrid had expected a flurry of questions from her classmates, but the cover story Professors Melusine and Hanneman had come up with between them had taken care of that. The Black Eagles were going on a wilderness survival training exercise, and the site of the exercise being so close to Ingrid’s home territory, she had expressed an interest in joining them. Dimitri had wistfully expressed the desire to join them, but the Church was very leery about allowing both the future Adrestian emperor and the future king of Faerghus to go off into the wilderness together with minimal protection—especially after what had happened at the beginning of the year. Besides that, Dimitri himself would have been vulnerable to the elements and the whims of nature. If he had died out in the wilderness, the succession would have been thrown into chaos.

So Dimitri had said to her. Ingrid had gotten the strong impression that he was still trying to convince himself of that when they parted ways.

Herself, Ingrid was glad that Dimitri would be staying behind. She did not want him to know the true reason for this excursion; the very idea of it made her stomach grow hot and hard with shame. This was an internal matter for House Galatea, something she prayed would not shine too unflattering of a light on the inner workings of her house, but either way, Dimitri very much did _not_ need to see it. If the allegations against Kneller were true—if what he had told Dorothea had not simply been horribly misguided drunken boasting—the future king of Faerghus did _not_ need to know precisely how Kneller’s name had come up in connection with House Galatea’s.

Her future king should not bear witness to her house’s shame. As difficult as things had been for her house thus far, such a scandal, witnessed by Dimitri in person, could make them far worse.

 _We are friends_. The pressure in her stomach eased considerably once Dimitri was out the door and no longer present to spot any change in her expression. Yes, they were friends. That was not all that they were.

They had left just before dawn, the day after Ingrid had received her father’s letter. All had gone well—likely owing to her long experience as a mercenary, Professor Melusine could get supplies together very quickly when she needed to. The horses, pegasi, and covered wagon had been ready when Ingrid made her way to the outer gate in the cool, breezy gloom, her bag slung over her shoulder. As she made her way down, she spotted Ferdinand and Caspar half-pushing, half-dragging Linhardt between them. Linhardt was yawning and visibly nodding off, and once they reached the wagon, he was pitched right in, and Ingrid could only suppose he had gone right back to sleep.

Ingrid was… She was surprised at how readily the rest of the Black Eagles had agreed to accompany her on this trip. Edelgard and Dorothea had made the commitment, but Dorothea was the one who had known Kneller, and Edelgard had listened to it firsthand. Hubert was here primarily to watch over Edelgard, which, alright, was not at all surprising. Ferdinand had said something about this being the duty of a noble, and Petra had taken a _personal_ interest when she learned of just what Kneller stood accused of. Caspar was curious about what that part of Fódlan was like, and had expressed concerns about the class needing more muscle if it came down to a fight—Ingrid herself hoped it would not come to that, hoped that the weapons they had brought along would never be anything more than a fruitless precaution. Even Bernadetta and Linhardt, though Ingrid had no idea _why_ they had come along, had made no protest that Ingrid was aware of. Only Flayn had been left behind, no doubt at Seteth’s request.

Pride spoke to her, saying that these strangers to her house’s affairs should not bear witness to House Galatea’s shame, if shame was to be found in Aidunn. Guilt and loyalty spoke to her in tandem, counseling that she should not expose her father to whatever conclusions her fellow travelers might come to, if it turned out that her would-be husband really was a slaver who had made his wealth by peddling in flesh.

(Dread spoke to her. It was not welcome in her mind, and ever had Ingrid tried to push it down behind walls of ivy and walls of brick, but dread had never cared for whether or not it was welcome, and when dread wished to speak, there was nothing Ingrid could do to silence it.

Dread posed her a single question: with what eyes would she look at her father, if the accusations against Niklaus Kneller were true?)

But these thoughts were uncharitable and ungracious (especially those prompted by dread), and when Ingrid pushed her anxieties aside, what she found beneath was gratitude. The only Black Eagles she knew well were Dorothea and, however fraught the knowledge might have been, Edelgard. They were the only ones she knew well, and the rest had agreed to help her, regardless. There had been no talk of not caring because it was something that did not involve them, or their own houses. Ingrid would not have expected such from people who were effectively casual acquaintances. She could not be anything but grateful.

Grateful, and anxious of what they would all find in Aidunn.

But Ingrid felt little of that anxiety while they were still making the journey north. The weather had been perfect, the sky a glorious, cloudless blue the pale, crystalline azure characteristic of autumn. The wind was up, singing in the trees and ruffling the smooth surfaces of ponds and narrow lakes far below. It was as far as Ingrid had been from the monastery since the beginning of the year, and she would only be flying further away. She’d not realized how much she had missed the freedom of long journeys during these months in almost-captivity until she had gotten out here and the brisk air tasted so much sweeter than any breath of air in Garreg Mach had ever been.

The terrain already resembled much more closely the harsher climes Ingrid had always known in the Kingdom than the preternaturally lush lands surrounding Garreg Mach, and lush as those lands were, Ingrid’s eyes feasted on this renewed sight of home in ways they never had when she was in the monastery. The only thing that could have improved the experience would have been if Ingrid had been flying on the back of Kyphon, the pegasus who awaited her in the Galatea stables, rather than one of the pegasi out of the monastery’s stables.

(She had not forgotten the hardships of living in such a land. She had not forgotten the way she and others lived in Galatea territory, not forgotten the peasantry eking a scant living from the unforgiving soil, not forgotten how much scantier the meals at home were than what she had enjoyed in Garreg Mach. She had not forgotten how utterly ruinous another famine would be for them. She’d not forgotten her long, as-yet fruitless search for farming methods that could provide a solution. She had forgotten nothing.)

For now, Ingrid would savor this unexpected chance to see more of her homeland, months before she had expected to see it again. As long as she was up in the air, it was easier not to think about Niklaus Kneller.

Up in the air, it was easy to forget that she had any troubles at all.

-

The class, plus Ingrid, were moving at a brisk pace, stopping only when necessary to rest the horses and the pegasi. Professor Melusine’s reasoning had been that they did not know how long it would take to find what they were looking for in Aidunn—or how long it would take for them to determine that there was nothing there for them to find—so it made sense to get to Aidunn as quickly as possible. (Ingrid hoped they would be able to find an inn large enough to house them all comfortably, and all of their animals. She hoped the innkeeper wouldn’t be the sort of person to ask too many questions. She hoped it would all go with minimal fuss.) They’d not stopped for sleep until well after the sun had sunk swiftly over the western horizon, grudging the mid-year world its light.

Ingrid still had little experience of camping. Professor Melusine had not allowed them to bring tents—they were engaged at least in a veneer of this being a wilderness training exercise—and thus they had solely pallets, instead. Pallets and a campfire and thoughts of warmth when the briskness of day turned to the chill of night, and thoughts of warmth were all you had, if you were not one of the people closest to the fire. Ingrid could not say she liked it or disliked it; it simply was what it was. There had been many winters at home when the already drafty castle could not be kept warm to the usual standards, and Ingrid either slept in her bed beneath layers of blankets and quilts and furs and still felt cold, or she slept on a pallet in the solar alongside her brothers before the hearth, and yes, she still felt cold.

Ingrid rolled over in her pallet and winced, hissing between her teeth, when a rock chose just that moment to dig its single tooth into her ribs. She could have sworn that rock had _not_ been there when she checked the ground for rocks before unrolling her pallet. Just like she could have sworn that the last rock she had rolled onto had not been there. Were they spontaneously appearing out of the earth just to disrupt her sleep?

There was at least one thing that Ingrid could positively identify as disliking about camping. She disliked the fact that she couldn’t bring her bed with her.

Sighing irritably, Ingrid got up from the pallet to remove this latest discovery. _Here is this one. Now, I am certain I’ll find a dozen more before the sun rises._ (Ingrid had another hope for their accommodations in Aidunn: soft beds.)

She did not lie down immediately, instead sitting up long enough to stretch her stiff back and shoulders. While she did so, she caught sight of another student sitting up in “bed.” On the other side of the fire, Edelgard was sitting up, stock-still and ramrod-straight, looking right at her.

Ingrid smoothed down her braid, ratty and matted after a couple of days with no real opportunity to attend to her hair properly, with uncommon self-consciousness. The pair of them had been assigned spots closest to the fire—Edelgard as the future emperor and Ingrid as the potential betrothed of a man who had been accused of shocking crimes had, alongside Petra as the future queen of Brigid, been deemed the most likely targets of any bandits or raiders who happened upon them. Thus, they were pushed in close to the fire, the other students forming a ring around them. The proximity had been…

Well. The proximity had been noticeable. Extremely noticeable.

“Are… you on watch?” Ingrid asked her in a low voice, needing to break the silence with _something_ , no matter how lame.

Edelgard shook her head. Her loose hair, while mussed, was not nearly as ratty-looking as Ingrid’s braid. Ingrid eyed her hair, still relatively smooth, still looking remarkably clean despite the last couple of nights spent sleeping rough. She told herself that what she felt swirling in her chest was envy, envy of the no-doubt easier time Edelgard would have sorting out her hair once they reached Aidunn.

It did not feel as noxious as envy ought to have. Ingrid chose not to dwell on that. She saw no reason why she should.

“Petra and our professor have taken the first watch,” she explained, in as equally a low voice (One thing Ingrid had learned while sleeping rough, so close to so many other people: _no one_ was happy to be awoken without need.) “The next watch will commence shortly.”

It would seem Ingrid had not been trying to sleep (and rolling over onto rocks as she did so) for as long as she thought. This… was going to be a long night.

Fire cast its livid light over Edelgard’s face, failing to color her skin or hair, but certainly illuminating her features, rendering them both highly visible and slightly distorted. Ingrid looked her up and down, getting the imagination of a statue with facial features chiseled in such a way as to be visible even if the statue was ten feet tall, and the observer was standing twenty feet away. In particular, a statue whose face had been chiseled to be a perfect representation of neutrality.

Even with that, Ingrid could spot the stiff tension stitched into Edelgard’s shoulders.

“Have you had much experience of camping?” It did not seem so inappropriate to ask, when they were currently seated on opposite sides of a campfire.

Another, barely perceptible shake of the head. “I cannot say that I have—none, before I come here.” She stared beyond the campfire, off into the trees surrounding the campsite and the darkness that swallowed them all up. “I enjoy exploration, but I have found that I prefer to keep my own company while I do so.”

So, she’d no doubt had little experience of exploration which she could honestly say that she enjoyed. In both Fhirdiad and in the Galatea keep, during the royal family’s rare visits there, Ingrid could remember few occasions when Dimitri was allowed to go _anywhere_ without a chaperone. The presence of the king voided the need for a chaperone; otherwise, you could be sure that there would be a guard in the vicinity, keeping a weathered eye on their royal charge. Some chaperones had been easier to shake than others, but all had at least been assigned.

Ingrid could not imagine that it would have been any different for the Imperial princess. Even when Edelgard had not yet been her father’s heir, preserving the chastity of an emperor’s daughter would have been considered as paramount as preserving the safety of the emperor’s heir. No doubt there would have always been many watchful pairs of eyes on her at once, the better to ensure that no mischief could befall the princess, ensure that she could engage in no mischief that might render her unmarriageable and jeopardize the succession of the Empire.

Of course, this all begged the question of just how Edelgard had been chaperoned when she was being held hostage in Fhirdiad. Ingrid could almost laugh to herself, though that laughter would have been bitter and slightly giddy, at the thought of what arrangements Edelgard’s uncle-kidnapper might have made to ensure that his royal hostage was properly looked after and not getting into any reputation-shattering mischief. Had he taken a governess or a nursemaid with them when he abducted Edelgard from Enbarr? Or had he hired someone on upon reaching Fhirdiad? Curiosity gnawed at her, but Ingrid dared not ask—it would have been beyond all bounds of propriety to do so.

When would Edelgard have had any opportunity to explore _anything_ without the presence of a chaperone? Had she been like Dimitri, determined to dodge the attention of chaperones whenever their presence began to chafe? Ingrid could not imagine it of the composed, dignified young woman she had known at the Officers Academy, but Edelgard had been a child, once. A child with brothers and sisters. A child without scars running up and down her arms. A child with brown hair.

“We are much the same, in that.” The questions burned. They were not alone, and could not say who was sleeping, and who was awake. “My family’s territory is sparsely populated; much of it is simply empty land.” Because they could not support more than what they did. Because sometimes, the land could not support even the number already living on it. “I’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring the territory.”

And she knew just how unusual that was. She knew how few noble girls were allowed to wander out of sight not just of their family, but of anyone, as often or for as long as she had been. There certainly had been a few restrictions put on her wandering, but she’d played in more mud puddles and poked sticks in more creeks than the vast majority of noble girls in the Kingdom. Especially noble girls with Crests.

The itchy, uneasy warmth of those thoughts fell away just as quickly as they emerged. Those freedoms… they had started to be chipped away at in the year before she went to the Officers Academy. There had been more talk of how Ingrid needed to safeguard her reputation, of how Ingrid needed to avoid any behavior that could invite gossip, that people would talk if it was known that Ingrid had been gone from the castle for hours at a time and her parents ignorant as to where she had gone. It would threaten her marriage prospects. Her wandering would threaten the future of her entire family.

Ingrid had accepted the restrictions, for she could see the truth of her parents’ words. If she must stay closer to the keep, that was only natural. The alternative could have been her parents and brothers starving. At the time, Henrik had not yet been sent away to serve as a page in Viscount Kleiman’s household. If Ingrid had had to explain to him that she rated a few petty freedoms more highly than she did his well-being...

Of course, she had consented to the new restrictions.

Of course, she had.

“We will be passing through Galatea territory tomorrow.” Something glinted in Edelgard’s eyes—perhaps just the firelight. “I have never been there before.”

“I hope you enjoy your time there.”

Truly, she did. Ingrid knew there were many who would have looked at her family’s home territory, as rugged and desolate and empty as it could be, and deemed it unlovely and then simply dismissed it from thought. Ingrid knew there were lands more classically picturesque, knew there were plenty who would never have given Galatea territory a second look. But she loved it. It was home. She loved it.

(She had not forgotten the clouds of reeking ash spewed up by Ailell when the Goddess felt the need to remind the world of her wrath. She had not forgotten how that ash poisoned the earth it rained down on, killing crops and sickening farm animals. She had forgotten nothing.)

“I…” Edelgard pursed her lips. “I do not like making promises I may not be able to keep, but I think I will find the experience interesting.” She paused, her hand frozen halfway in its progress up to her hair. “I do realize that that is perhaps not the best quality for the future emperor to possess.”

Ingrid blinked, taken aback by the admission. _When have I heard her…_

She hadn’t heard Edelgard say anything like that to anyone. Perhaps she was more open in private, with whoever she might have taken as a confidante, but Ingrid had never heard her express such a thing in her hearing. There were few doubts that the future emperor could really afford to express in a public place. The pride of House Hresvelg must be preserved. The Adrestian Empire must not lose face.

And yet, whether intended or not, Edelgard had said it to her.

“I would not say that,” Ingrid countered quickly. She did not want to do _anything_ that could jeopardize this confidence. “If a leader cannot be trusted to keep their word, they will quickly lose the faith of their people. It’s good for you to be able to keep your promises.”

A small sound, unidentifiable as a laugh or a huff or even a sigh, escaped Edelgard’s mouth. “In a kinder time, I could accept your advice with no conditions. But I must be a politician as well as a ruler, and the future looks, as ever, uncertain.” She pursed her lips, her eyes taking on an almost dejected glisten. (The late hour, it must have been the late hour.) “I can make you a promise right now, in good faith, and find tomorrow that circumstances have changed, and I can no longer keep the promise I made to you.”

Ingrid felt, not for the first time, that her life up until now must have been very simple compared to Edelgard’s. “Things must be very uncertain in Enbarr.”

This time, the noise that emitted from Edelgard’s mouth was unmistakably a huff. “You have no idea.” A frown stole over her mouth. “Ingrid. What will you do, if we go to Aidunn, and discover that Niklaus Kneller has not done as he claimed to Dorothea?”

For all that Ingrid sat close to the fire, she could at this moment feel none of its warmth. “If… If I find that the accusations against him have no real basis, I will… accept the proposal he has offered my father.”

Edelgard peered at her more closely. “Will you?”

It would spell the death of her dreams. Nevertheless, Ingrid nodded. “Yes.”

“Despite the fact that he was willing to make those claims in the first place?” Edelgard’s finely plucked eyebrows began to arch upwards. “Despite the fact that he felt that making those claims would _impress_ a girl he was trying to court? You said yourself that you felt that he likely only wishes to marry you so that you might grant his bloodline a Crest. You would accept him, knowing that?”

How to tell her that, barring one, every suitor who had ever come calling had seen Ingrid primarily as a means to introduce a Crest into their bloodline? How to tell her how routine it was for her suitors to evaluate her solely as a Crest-bearing mother who could give them Crest-bearing children?

No. Ingrid did not have to tell her. Edelgard was as much a part of this world as Ingrid was, and she was clearly observant enough to know the world for what it was. Edelgard did not have to be told what all of Ingrid’s suitors, bar one, had wanted from her. She knew.

“My family’s survival depends upon my marrying a wealthy man. My family’s survival depends upon my marrying a man with connections that my family can leverage.” The words crawled from her mouth, garbled and nicking her tongue with sharp claws: “Yes, I would accept him.”

The fire popped and crackled, punctuating the silence that had arisen between them. Edelgard set her hands down in her lap, and sighed. “As the world is now,” she said quietly, “yes, I suppose it does. But Ingrid? When you keep making sacrifices, there is only so much of yourself to give. Beyond that point…”

But she stopped herself, and before Ingrid could ask her to go on, Petra melted out of the darkness to wake Ferdinand for the next watch. Soon after, Professor Melusine followed her, waking Dorothea.

Now, with others awake in the camp, even if only for the next several minutes, Edelgard did not seem at all eager to go on talking. Ingrid tried to catch her eye, but she only stared back at her, statue-like once more.

It would be another day of long travel once Professor Melusine bade them rise. Flying tired was never a good idea—Ingrid had only ever heard stories of pegasus or wyvern riders dozing off and falling from their mounts’ backs, but she wasn’t fool enough to assume the stories were _just_ stories.

Ingrid lied down, pulling her pallet back over her. Sleep was elusive. She could still feel Edelgard’s eyes on her, like the touch of a phantom hand.

-

The fair weather lasted as they made their way north over the next day, granting them the boon of swift travel. Ingrid could tell immediately when they had crossed the border into Galatea territory. Beyond the signposts that marked the miles and the names of the nearest towns and castles, the land was familiar to the eye as the back of her own hand. The dense forests fell away and the western horizon was no longer forest interspersed with farmer’s fields and the occasional village, but moors, stripped gray now that the first frosts had come and killed all of the heather blossoms. Tangled gorse bushes wound their way across the landscape as low-lying natural fences, partitioning pieces of the moorland away from each other. Spindly yew trees stretched their grasping branches towards the skies. Boulders covered in whitish lichen jutted out against the hills like rows upon rows of broken teeth.

On occasion, Ingrid would catch a flash of red against the grayish land, darting in and out of the shelter of tufts of cottongrass and crowberry—a fox, hunting frogs or mice. Ingrid would think she was seeing branches out of the corner of her eye, until those branches began to move in a way that could not be accounted for by the wind, and she would look and see a stag loping up and down the rolling hills. A dark speck against the sky revealed a hawk flying far above them, further than Ingrid would ever have dared to go on her pegasus, searching for food.

But beyond that, it was empty. Ingrid never saw any people wandering the moors; the only human beings she saw that day were the ones who were traveling with her. Even Ingrid, who had lived here her entire life, could easily have believed that there was no one living in Galatea territory at all.

 _And to think that I was afraid of how far we would have to go out of our way to avoid drawing my father’s attention._ Ingrid brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face—and given how high up she was, that lock of hair was immediately back in her face, leaving her to spit it out of her mouth. _We haven’t even seen any sign of bandits while we’ve been here. If I cannot take_ that _as some sort of sign, I don’t suppose I can take_ anything _as a sign._

She… had wandered often, in years past, but never this far from home. The only time she had been this far from home, she was in a carriage with either latticed windows, or no windows at all. She had never seen how empty this part of the territory truly was. But why should she be surprised? This was barren land that could support no one. So much of Galatea territory was barren land that could support no one. It must remain a haven for wild animals, but empty of humans.

Ingrid… would keep trying to find a solution. Even once she was married to a man who would want her loyalty to be him first (him only, perhaps), even when she would be whisked far away, she would keep trying to find a solution. However much she was at a loss for what that solution was. Her brothers would still be here, long after she was gone. She did not wish to leave them a desolate land that, however lovely, might not be able to support even them.

They kept up their brisk pace throughout the day, not even stopping for meals, eating them on the go, instead. (Ingrid would have liked better to stop and sit down to eat her meals, but food was food, and a meal was a meal. She would not complain about what was offered, nor the manner in which it was offered.) The plan was either to reach Aidunn tonight, or very early in the morning tomorrow, and as far as Ingrid could see from examining the maps, they were going to have to push their mounts to their limits to achieve such a result.

As the day waned, the sky began to sour. Clouds rolled in from the west, wool stained rust and yellow grease and coal dust. The last few rays of sunlight were nothing more than distantly glowing embers, soon extinguished.

Light vanished into oblivion under the west, and another light flared in the north.

“What—what’s that?” Ingrid was a prime audience to the fearful wobble of Bernadetta’s voice; once darkness had fallen, Professor Melusine had called for Ingrid and Petra to come down to ground level and ride alongside the horsemen. “Is that a forest fire? Are we riding towards a forest fire? Shouldn’t we turn around? It’s _way_ too dangerous to ride towards that. Are we going to be burned? Are we going to get hurt? Are we going to _die_?!”

It would have been impossible to answer any of those questions as they were spoken; it was _amazing_ how quickly Bernadetta could talk when she worked herself up into such a towering panic. Even if the questions had been asked at normal speed (or, for that matter, normal _volume_ ), though, Ingrid would have been able to summon the answers all at once.

They had reached the pine barrens in the north of the territory. Once upon a time, this had been a lush forest. Ingrid had heard the stories. The land here had been lush and green, had in time immemorial been home to a great city. The glory of men, really, that city, the most advanced and enlightened city upon the face of the earth.

But it had also been very wicked, this city. It was home to wicked people, and ruled by an unspeakably wicked king. The Goddess had been deeply grieved by the evil and the decadence of this city, discerning that they would never change, that evil parents would give birth to evil children, and that their sins would surely infect the rest of mankind, dooming all the rest to perdition.

So she killed them all.

And even to this day, fire glowed through the warped fence of twisted, malformed pine trees. At night, if you were close enough to see that light, than anyone who did not know the source might, as Bernadetta had assumed, think it a forest fire. Others might think a second sun was rising entirely too close in the sky.

Ailell. The Valley of Torment. The reminder to wicked mankind that the Goddess’s patience and mercy was not without its limits. The giant that loomed at the edge of Galatea territory.

As borderline-blasphemous as the thought might be, Ingrid wondered sometimes just how wise it had been for the founder of her house to break away from House Daphnel. The king of Faerghus of that time could hardly have passed up the opportunity to accept another Crest-bearing noble family into the fold; anything to shore up the strength of his kingdom. But he already had so many loyal supporters, families that had been entrenched in their lands for centuries. How to grant land to a family that had not yet proven its worth and its loyalty, without offending those followers whose worth and whose loyalty was not in question?

The answer, as it turned out, had been simple. Given them land no one would have been angry to be parted from. Give them land no one in their right mind would ever want.

She did not resent it. It was the only way House Galatea could be admitted into the Kingdom without bringing down upon it the resentment of every noble family that had been forced to give up land for its sake. She could not resent it. She could not _feel_ resentment.

She _had_ hoped that the party would be able to make it to Aidunn without passing within sight of Ailell. But that had proven impossible. This was the only road connecting this part of Galatea territory to Daphnel territory; a route that avoided Ailell would have seen them going almost a day out of their way. Her pride was not worth so inconveniencing people who had been under no obligation to follow her so far as they already had.

Still, she wished that they had not had to come here.

A rumble like thunder shook the earth, radiating out from the source of that hungry, wrathful light. Ingrid bit back a cough as a gust of wind assaulted them with the reek of sulfur and brimstone. Others behind her, less prepared, hacked and coughed.

“This is Ailell, the Valley of Torment,” Ingrid explained tersely. “Long ago, the Goddess destroyed a city of wicked men, ruled by a wicked king. Now, all that is left of that city is ash and smoke and a fire that can never be extinguished. We should keep moving.” With commingled difficulty and relief, Ingrid tore her eyes away from the light. “It’s not a healthy place to be.”

As they were riding away, someone drew up on their horse, close to Ingrid’s right. A voice sounded next to her ear, a rasp of warm breath on her skin: “You may find that the act of caring for your family takes you far away from them. We must all sacrifice something in our lives; it may be that you sacrifice proximity. But do you want to go so far away from your family to become the wife of an unworthy man? Is that what you want?”

Ingrid, wondering if there would be more ashfall, that poisonous mockery of snow, tonight, did not answer.

-

They’d gone on through the night, to the displeasure of the animals, and the greater displeasure of those in the party who would have liked to make camp and sleep. Linhardt had been deposited into the back of the wagon maybe half an hour after they’d passed by Ailell, to join Dorothea, who was so bad with horses that she had been in the wagon the whole time. Hubert joined the pair of them not long after. His expertise would be needed in Aidunn, or so Edelgard claimed, and thus he needed as much sleep as possible. What that expertise was, no one had been particularly eager to explain. Ingrid just hoped it wouldn’t be anything that put them too far on the wrong side of the local guards.

Professor Melusine had been to Aidunn before—long ago, apparently, and she had been too young to really be paying attention to where the local merchants kept their offices, but she did remember where the inns were. The innkeeper had given her an odd look, a rather unfriendly sort of odd, but when she produced a copious amount of gold, that odd, unfriendly look vanished like the steam that wisped up from a bun that had just been eaten. He had had a porter see them up to their rooms—they had to be split among three—and packed their animals off to the stables for much-needed food and rest.

Then, the waiting began.

(In her ignorance, Ingrid thought the waiting the worst of it. Later, she would wish for the _bliss_ of quiet waiting.)

Ingrid was not allowed to leave the inn for the duration of their stay in Aidunn. Kneller had never seen her in person, but there was a chance that her father would have shown him a miniature, and they could not risk a meeting. Not if he was in Aidunn, or happened to come to Aidunn while she was here. There would have been no good reason for her to be here—or, in Kneller’s eyes, only _one_ good reason. Without all the information she needed, Ingrid would sooner avoid that.

The waiting was miserable beyond compare. This was her future at stake, and she had to leave it to other people to determine what path her future would take? (Her father had always decided the course of her future, but that was different. That was different.) At the very least, she should have been out there looking for Kneller’s offices, trying to dig up his ledgers and records.

It was cool consolation that Dorothea and, just to be cautious, Edelgard as well, had also been directed not to leave the inn. Cool consolation that they were just as restless and just as frustrated as Ingrid was, cooped up in the inn. Bernadetta was holed up in her room (which she shared with her roommates under protest) and was content to stay there as long as she was allowed, but the rest of them were in and out of the inn, trying to pinpoint Kneller’s base here in Aidunn. The rest of them were contributing.

Ingrid couldn’t.

A light drizzle pattered against the warped windows in the dim, smoky common room, obscuring even further the already blurred view of the stables Ingrid had been surveying. It had been an hour since Professor Melusine and Hubert left with their ‘assistants’ to try again to find Kneller’s office. Aidunn was, according to Linhardt, about half again the size of the town within the walls of Garreg Mach, and they had to be discreet regarding their search and any inquiries they might make. So needless to say, it was slow going.

“It may start snowing, soon,” Ingrid remarked, in the desire to have something to say at all. She’d been wishing, lately, that she had brought her schoolwork with her, or maybe a nice book out of her bookshelf in her dormitory room. “It’s been getting colder and colder. If it’s still raining when night falls, that rain may turn to snow.”

Of the two of them, between Dorothea and Edelgard, only Edelgard looked particularly open to the idea of snowfall over night.

“I’ve never actually seen snow before.” Dorothea grimaced. “Frozen rain sounds…” A weak laugh jarred from her mouth. “It really doesn’t sound like something I’d be interested in.”

Was she talking about just watching it fall from inside a building with windows and a fireplace? Or was she thinking of being out in the snow, with no place she could go to be warm? Would it have been alright to ask?

_How much easier is it when I see someone doing something wrong?_

Before Ingrid could work out whether she should ask, Edelgard tapped her chin, staring up towards the splintered rafters. “I… believe I have seen snow before. Long ago.” Something like a wistful smile ghosted over her mouth. “I’m not certain when, however.”

Dorothea frowned at her. “When would _you_ have seen snow in Enbarr? Or did you spend winters in some breathtaking chateau on the shores of a mountain lake?”

Ingrid was frowning at her as well, but for a different reason.

Edelgard would have spent at least several months in Fhirdiad. If she had seen snow anywhere, it would certainly have been in Fhirdiad, where it snowed more often than it didn’t. But surely every day Edelgard had spent as her uncle’s hostage would have been a vividly recalled experience. Such a traumatic disruption of her life; Ingrid could not imagine that any of it would have been easily _forgotten_. Especially not the point in her time as a hostage when she was taken out of her homeland altogether.

Was she being vague deliberately? Ingrid was uncertain as to just how common knowledge it was that Edelgard had been taken hostage during the Insurrection of the Seven. Surely it would have come out that one of the emperor’s children had been abducted, especially if her kidnapper was the instigator of the revolt _and_ he had taken his hostage over the border into the Kingdom. But Ingrid had heard none of this when it was actually happening. An Imperial princess in Fhirdiad would have been hot gossip, even as far from Fhirdiad as Galatea territory, and yet, Ingrid had heard nothing.

To what lengths would Lord Arundel have had to go to to conceal both his and Edelgard’s presence in the Kingdom?

Well, at least Edelgard’s reluctance to be open about this had a more obvious source: Lord Arundel and the other nobles who had politically neutered Emperor Ionius were still in power. Edelgard might well be cautious of angering them; much as it shamed her to admit it, Ingrid would certainly have moved cautiously in her place. If those men were willing to overthrow an emperor just because he was trying to assert his authority _as_ emperor, what might they be willing to do to a princess who spoke words that displeased them, or reminded them of their past misdeeds?

(Were there no true knights anywhere in the Empire?)

Back in the present, Edelgard was shaking her head, regarding Dorothea with a look of mild disbelief. “Certainly not. I was expected to stay in Enbarr, in the royal household.”

“Always?” Ingrid asked.

Edelgard nodded firmly. “Always.”

So, she was clinging to this vagueness. It was as clear a message as Ingrid was likely to receive. Message received, loud and clear. She would not press upon that point any further. Not when Edelgard might be risking exposure to acknowledge what had become of her during the insurrection.

Neither Dorothea nor Edelgard had had any pleasant experiences of travel before coming to Garreg Mach. Dorothea, Ingrid could infer, had never left Enbarr before enrolling at the Officers Academy. And Edelgard, Edelgard had been expected to stay in the royal household in Enbarr, and the only time she had ever really traveled was when she had been kidnapped and she was dragged around the continent like a piece of luggage, with no say in what happened to her or where she went.

What a way to experience travel.

What a way to see the world for the first time.

Ingrid wished, with an intensity that surprised her both with its suddenness and its existence at all, that it was not so. That Edelgard’s situation had been different, that she had been able to enjoy visiting new places, instead of having to spend every moment of her time with Lord Arundel for her own safety.

She could not change the past.

Maybe she could tell a story, instead.

“Do either of you know much about the Rhodos Coast?”

Perhaps it was selfish, but though Ingrid was addressing them both, her eyes were focused entirely on Edelgard, who sat across from Ingrid and Dorothea at the table. No, it was entirely selfish, but Ingrid could not make herself stop. It simply was what it was, and she hoped that Dorothea either wouldn’t notice that she was not really the object of Ingrid’s attention, or that if she did, she would forgive it. After all, Dorothea _had_ come to certain conclusions regarding the nature of Ingrid’s regard for Edelgard. As incorrect as those conclusions were, perhaps they would work in Ingrid’s favor, this time, and see Dorothea just letting things go.

Dorothea looked to Edelgard, then to Ingrid, then shrugged. “Not very much. It’s… somewhere in the Kingdom, isn’t it? I’m sorry; I’ve never looked too hard at maps when I don’t need to.”

Edelgard nodded barely perceptibly, saying nothing. Without words, Ingrid could not begin to guess what the need signified.

Undaunted, Ingrid forged ahead. “The Rhodos Coast is a stretch of shoreline on the western coast of the Kingdom, in the territory of House Mateus. There is a site there sacred to Saint Cichol, but laymen are not allowed to visit it; I’ve never laid eyes on it. I visited it once, as a child. I remember it vividly; I had never seen the ocean before, and I have not seen it again since then.

“The sand was coarse and harsh on my feet, an orange-red that looked like dried blood once the sun began to set. There were these strange pillars of orange rock scattered about the beach. Some of them formed arches that my second brother and I tried to climb up, only to fall off of them after climbing maybe eight feet up.

“The coast was never cultivated as a port, thanks to the holy site nearby; I think the rocks jutting up out of the water may also have played a part in that decision.”

“No doubt they did,” Edelgard agreed. Though her expression had been neutral, she had neither gotten up from the table nor told Ingrid to stop, which Ingrid could not imagine she would have hesitated to do, if she was displeased by what Ingrid was saying. Indeed, Edelgard’s pale eyes had been intent upon her, scouring Ingrid’s face. (It was blessedly dim in the common room, even this close to a window.) “It’s too hazardous for ships to try to make landing in such circumstances without desperate cause. Removing the rocks wouldn’t have been considered worth the time or effort except for a site thought more promising as a major port.”

Out of the corner of Ingrid’s eye, Dorothea was nodding. “I’ll bet not. Rich men get pretty loud when something threatens their money; I haven’t known too many who slowed down when they realized that something couldn’t say ‘sorry.’ But that’s not what you were wanting to talk about, is it, Ingrid?”

No particular insinuation flavored her voice, none that Ingrid could hear. There was that, at least. Ingrid would take the small mercy for what it was. She shook her head gently, and went on, “I was merely describing the coast. There are not cities there, no ports, and that part of the Kingdom doesn’t have too many people living there.” It was one of the few places in the Kingdom that had not been blood-soaked and salted, and yet had fewer people living in it than Galatea territory—Mateus territory had never fully recovered from the plague that swept through the Kingdom not long after Ingrid was born. “I don’t think too many people know aught about it.”

Edelgard tilted her head slightly to the right, her silver-white hair (perfectly clean and neat again after a thorough wash) slipping over one shoulder like a sheet of water. “Go on, then.” Her eyes flickered to the window, before focusing again upon Ingrid. “It seems that we will have plenty of time to spend here, waiting.”

A small smile stole over Ingrid’s mouth as she reached deep into the well of her memory. For once, something dredged up was wholly pleasant, with no attendant darkness waiting to swallow remembered happiness whole. She would savor it for as long as she could. “From the tales I was told, I had expected the waters of the ocean to be a simple blue, broken only by the white caps of the waves, and for maybe the first half-mile or so from land, it was. Just a clear, unbroken blue. But past that, I saw something I had not expected. I saw that the sea was green.”

Kelp, her uncle had called it, immensely long green plants growing below the surface of the water. There were miles upon miles of kelp forest stretching out, girding the Rhodos Coast like a green belt. Pearl divers had described the kelp as utterly impenetrable to their eyes, more like a wall than a forest. Sea urchins, strange creatures covered in poisonous spines and colored red and blue and purple and every other color under the sun, dotted the ocean floor, eating kelp until they too were eaten by sea otters.

Ingrid had learned to swim that summer, and sometimes she fancied that she could see flashes of color that might belong to sea urchins. But the ocean teemed with life, and what might have been the spines of a sea urchin could easily been the scales of a fish, or the wings of a diving bird. In the last week she and Marcel had spent there, her father had come to join them. She had shown him how well she could swim, and he had picked her up and laughed— _my little fish_ , he had called her.

As Ingrid retold the summer she had spent at the Rhodos Coast, she sank deeper and deeper into memory, but she did not lose sight of Edelgard, watching and listening as she told her tale.

The smoke that permeated the common room softened the delicate sharpness of Edelgard’s features, rendering her hazy and dreamlike. Watery light dripping through the window lit up her hair in bits and pieces, like flecks of mica on a bed of pale metal. Her eyes were what made the greatest impression, her eyes what would stay with Ingrid long after they had left Aidunn behind them.

She wasn’t smiling, you know, not exactly. Edelgard had a way of not quite smiling, something that sometimes made Ingrid wonder if Imperial princesses were trained to expert level in how to convey an action without _actually_ conveying that action. Was it meant for some sort of plausible deniability?

Oh, but that was getting off topic.

Edelgard was not smiling, not exactly. But there was none of the tension in her face that would have been characteristic of a frown. Her restlessness and frustration had been forgotten; even the concern she might have felt for her professor and classmates out searching Aidunn seemed to have been put to one side. Her eyes had softened. Ingrid could not remember when she had ever seen Edelgard’s eyes soften to such an extent.

But they had. Gone was the frost of late winter; spring had been allowed to thaw the coolness of her eyes. When Ingrid looked into those eyes, she felt…

She did not know what she felt.

(But she did. It was just that her mind shied away from giving it a name.)

-

As the sunlight, what sunlight there was to be had, strengthened, Professor Melusine slipped back inside the inn. In low tones, she told them something that managed in one fell swoop to shatter the warmth that Ingrid had managed to foster at their table: they had located Kneller’s offices, found them completely empty, and would make preparations to extract his documents once night had fallen.

(Theft was what it was. It was theft, and Ingrid had named it such when the plan was first put to her. But Hubert had only looked at her like one would look at a child who had told him that he could not enter his own house because he had not first properly lit the lantern hanging beside the door. Were they supposed to go to Kneller or to a clerk and _ask_ him for his documents, then? Were they simply to request the ledgers that contained information that could send him to his death? If Kneller had anything to worry about, even if he never had trafficked in people, he would destroy the documents that could prove his wrongdoings as soon as he knew that someone else was interested in them, had he any common sense.

Ingrid would be lying if she said she had appreciated Hubert’s tone. She appreciated few of Hubert’s tones, and this one made her want to hit him, just a little bit. But there was truth to his words. However distasteful it was, they would need something in Niklaus Kneller’s own hand to convince her father. If nothing incriminating could be found, they could easily return the documents to Kneller’s offices. If he was innocent, he would lose nothing from this, and the shame of this incident would be one more thing she had to carry.)

The majority of the Black Eagles returned to the inn for the evening. Professor Melusine passed on a few more gold coins to the innkeeper, and suddenly the innkeeper was more than happy to keep his nose out of what this large party of travelers was doing tonight, more than happy to look the other way if some of them came and went to and from the inn somewhat after the doors should have been locked for the night. Ingrid really should have been perturbed by how easily the innkeeper could be persuaded by money to look the other way while his customers signaled to him that they were out to do something of dubious legality. If he ignored it when it was them, he could be ignoring it when it was raiders, or a murderer on the run—

_Or a slaver?_

As darkness fell, the tension mounted inside of Ingrid’s body, like metal wire wound tight enough to snap. She couldn’t hold a conversation, couldn’t make her thoughts settle on any one topic for long before they flitted away to another, though what was _really_ going on in her mind was this itchy, fuzzy sort of burning, tense and angry and deeply, deeply uneasy. Something was trying to burst out through walls of ivy and walls of stone, something larger and older and fiercer than any surface care or worry.

She ignored it as best she could. Which meant, really, that she ignored it poorly and convinced herself only not to look at it directly.

Ingrid picked at her supper, unable to summon an appetite for anything more than a few bites of her meal (Dense, dark bread and pork stuffed with apples and cloudberries). It was enough to make her wonder at first if she was actually sick, but no, her jittery unease had merely spread from her mind to the rest of her body.

Huh, merely…

The last time she had felt something so strongly that it took her appetite away from her, she’d just received the word that Glenn had been killed.

‘Merely’ did not seem like quite the word.

(She must reach for her courage. She had sought always to be a knight. A knight must be courageous. Glenn had been courageous, hadn’t he? He wouldn’t have gone flinching even to his death. Ingrid could be courageous enough for this. She could keep her courage for what must be done tonight, for what might be revealed.)

Sleep was an impossibility. How could Ingrid have quieted her mind enough to sleep? At least she was not alone on this score; none of the people who had been left behind in the inn had even bothered to try to seek out their beds. Not even Bernadetta was trying to hide under her bedsheets. And who could sleep? Who could sleep, when they knew that Professor Melusine, Hubert, and Petra were making their way into a merchant’s offices, looking for his records from the time during and just after the war between the Empire and Brigid and Dagda, and, yes, stealing them?

Who could sleep?

There was no bell tower in Aidunn to ring the hour, and more’s the pity, since depending on what moment it was, as soon as it was full dark, she either thought time was flying or crawling by. The night was either years or minutes long, with no median. What was worse was that Ingrid could not see that anyone else felt the same way. Everyone else seemed able to assume _some_ form of patience, cooped up in the same room as they were instead of breaking to the rooms they’d been assigned, and here she was, nearly bursting with pent-up energy.

Finally, in the dead of night, the drizzling rain turned to snow as she’d thought it would, the three who had gone out into the dark returned. Petra appeared first at the door, red-cheeked, slightly damp, and patently relieved to be out of the cold, holding it open for Professor Melusine and Hubert, who were similarly red-faced, slightly damp, and looking all the happier for now being inside. They were, more to the point, holding sacks in their arms.

As Caspar and Ferdinand pulled up the table, Hubert said to the group, almost cheerfully, “The nights have been long, but the sun will rise again. Shall we begin?”

And with that, everyone grabbed a book, and got down to the business of reading.

Even if Kneller had not come into his wealth until after the war, he had certainly been prolific before then. By the Goddess, he had been prolific. Ingrid wished he had been rather _less_ prolific; it would have made it a less trying task for her to get through her portion of his records.

It gave her some consolation that she was not alone in her frustration. Of all of them, Edelgard, Hubert, and Ferdinand had the best idea of what they should actually be looking for; the rest had been instructed simply to point it out to one of the three of them if they saw something they thought might be suspicious. Caspar’s eyebrows were up nearly to his hairline, the expression of someone who was _earnestly trying_ to be useful and find something that would be of use, but was really not cut out for this at all. Petra’s mouth was twisted in the line of someone whose prevailing opinion that all complicated math should be taken out back and dealt with in a rather less genteel manner with an abacus or with equations written out on parchment. Even Professor Melusine, who had likely never dealt with the monetary side of things when she and her father still worked as mercenaries, seemed just a little lost—there was this tiny furrow in her brow, the exact likes of which Ingrid had never seen there before.

It did not help, absolutely did not help, that transaction information for the same time periods was spread out among the ledgers. No one could quite figure out just why this was, since the ledgers did not seem to be separated by city or region, either. It was just… random.

Ingrid did not shy away from work. She wanted that to be very clear. She did not shirk her duties or try to shift them on other people (So please don’t try to mistake her for Hilda). Neither did she shy away from any assignment that was put to her, and she had no realistic way of putting off onto other people. She would not have done that. She was not so selfish as to do that.

But this was not the kind of work she relished, not in this kind of situation. In this kind of situation, Ingrid had always thought a more hands-on approach was needed to resolve it. If Kneller turned out to be guilty, let her be the one who dealt with him, the one who brought him to justice, even if she had to drag him back to Fhirdiad to face justice herself. But this, combing through a ledger, looking at descriptions of purchases made and money taken in years past, trying to find _anything_ that looked like it could be what Dorothea had described to her, this was not what she was made for. She had been made for action.

(What she dared not wonder: was her reluctance rooted in fear? If it was, fear of what, exactly?)

They had to get through these ledgers tonight. No matter how monotonous she found the task, she _must_ retain her concentration. She must see this through, no matter how her mind did not want to focus on the task, no matter how her arms and legs itched for movement, no matter how hard she could feel her blood pulsing just beneath her skin.

For reasons she had chosen not to share and which Ingrid dared not ask about, lest she take her chair and move to another part of the table, Edelgard had chosen to sit down next to Ingrid. If _she_ was finding her task difficult, she gave absolutely no sign of it. Her presence at Ingrid’s left elbow was both a distraction and a comfort. Ingrid’s pulse slowed slightly when she caught sight of Edelgard’s pale hair out of the corner of her eye, but all the same, her eyes kept drifting to where Edelgard was sitting. She had to remind herself of what was sitting in front of her, and its importance.

(One thought her mind kept returning to: here was an example of strength. No matter what had happened to Edelgard, no matter what might _continue_ to happen to Edelgard, she seemed always to be strong. An emperor must always be strong, of course, but it seemed to be baked into her, woven into her possibly from birth. Ingrid couldn’t imagine a time when Edelgard hadn’t been strong.

_Did you see strength in her when you spoke to her after her nightmare? Or was that something else you saw?_

Whatever it was, Ingrid looked at Edelgard, and saw strength. She looked at Edelgard, and wondered if she could ever be that strong herself.)

Ingrid pushed through her nerves, pushed through the distractions, and kept reading through the ledgers.

Ingrid could not guess at the hour when she found the item. There was no bell tower to ring the hour, and there was no timepiece to give them any sign of the hour; apparently, the majority of people in Aidunn must needs look at the position of the sun to guess at the hour. But it must have been late. The darkness that seeped in from under the shutters was black as ink, the hint of impenetrable, snowy night. There was not tiredness to be found in Ingrid’s body, or if there was, she just could not feel it. She felt jittery, and as she read the item, that feeling only grew.

_1175, Pegasus Moon, Day 20: 3,500 gold received. Reason: delivery of workers to Lord G___ from Elvine slum._

There had been some noise in the room, mumbled complaints and questions, just the sound of breathing. But when Ingrid drank in the words, drank them in, when she really comprehended those words, all the noise left the room.

When Ingrid could finally some noise in her own mouth, she said, “I… think… No. I’ve found something.”

And then, just like that, all eyes were on her.

Edelgard was peering over Ingrid’s shoulder while Professor Melusine was getting up from her chair, and Hubert was setting his own ledger down to eye her sharply. “Which one?” Edelgard asked, setting her gloved hand down on Ingrid’s elbow.

Ingrid had grown so jittery that the sensation of contact didn’t even register above it. “The twentieth day of the Pegasus Moon.” She tapped the entry with her finger. “This one.”

Before long, she had Edelgard _and_ Professor Melusine peering over her shoulders.

“That does seem like what we have been looking for,” Professor Melusine murmured.

“Indeed, it does,” Edelgard agreed. Her brow was furrowed deep, her eyes growing sharper and sharper with each passing moment.

From there, they began to look for dates from the Pegasus Moon in 1175, and on. Bernadetta found something next, in the Great Tree Moon of 1176—an entry with a nearly identical description to the one Ingrid had found, but with a payment of 4,000 gold from a Lady L­___, from a different slum. Hubert found another entry from the following month. Edelgard detailed an entry from the Blue Sea Moon of 1176, her voice like ice as she read out _‘twelve children procured for service in castle of Lord E____.’_ Most damning of all, Ingrid found a pair of entries from the Verdant Rain Moon:

“’1176, Verdant Rain Moon, Day 10: paid 5,000 gold for procurement of laborers for the indigo fields of Lady J___,’” Ingrid read out woodenly. She barely recognized her own voice—too calm, too even. “’1176, Verdant Rain Moon, Day 12: returned 500 gold to Lady J___ after two laborers died of injuries en route.’”

So.

That… that was it, wasn’t it?

Any degree of plausible deniability was gone, now. It had been tattered by the time Ingrid found the first entry, but this just obliterated it. Someone who stumbled on this with absolutely no context, no outside information, would have read this, and been suspicious. With the information she had already had going into this, it was utterly damning.

Ingrid stared at the words, and watched as the promise of security for her family melted away, a mirage slipping out of her hands, obliterated by proximity and truth. Dorothea was right. Edelgard was right. She could not allow her family’s fortunes to be built on such a foundation as this. It would be utterly ruinous. Her brothers would have no future, and _she_ would have no future, shackled to an utterly unscrupulous man.

It would destroy her family.

(With all of those promises vanishing in such quick succession, her family already felt half-destroyed.)

Dorothea slapped her hand down on the table, mouth twisting darkly in anger. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve heard enough. He’s a monster, and he’s no good for my Ingrid.”

“Lady Daphnel should be informed,” Ferdinand asserted, staring down at the ledgers as if they had done something to personally offend him. “She has jurisdiction over him here, and I have no doubt that Lady Daphnel would be ill-pleased to learn of what this reprobate has done.”

“We can address that at a later time,” Edelgard countered. She pressed her hand down over Ingrid’s elbow. “Ingrid? What will you do?”

“I…” Ingrid drew a deep, shuddering breath. The last step. This was the last step to putting all this aside. “We must take this information to my father. He will surely terminate the negotiations with Kneller once he learns of this.”

When Ingrid looked Edelgard’s way, she saw only a quiet concern, expressed in lips pressed close together, and tilted downwards. “What if he doesn’t?”

“He will,” Ingrid insisted. “I know he will.”


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : references to slavery; attempted kidnapping; references to forced marriage; references to murder; internalized misogyny]

Waiting for morning was quickly deemed inadvisable. Ingrid never would get the specifics of just how their trio of intrepid “explorers” had gotten into Kneller’s offices, but it came out that they had done so by methods that would likely be discovered once daylight graced the town of Aidunn once more. It would be difficult for them to get out of Aidunn to bring their evidence to Ingrid’s father if the guards put the town under lockdown until the thieves and their stolen goods could be found. It would be _especially_ difficult to do that if they were thrown in the local jail and their evidence was taken away from them.

Over the protest of certain members of their group, they packed their things and made to leave immediately. After another couple of gold coins changed hands, the innkeeper nodded, smiled, and was perfectly content to forget that they had ever been there. No doubt once someone else gave him a _larger_ amount of gold, he would be content to remember perfectly well that they had been here, _and_ tell his newest patron just where they had gone, but hopefully they would be far away from Aidunn by the time that happened, over the border back into the Kingdom where the law keepers could not follow them without risking an international incident.

So under the cover of darkness they left, like the thieves in the night that they regrettably (but necessarily) were. Snowflakes gathered in Ingrid’s hair as she secured her pegasus’s bridle. Her fingers slipped over the tacking as they never had before, and she tried once, twice, three times before, temper rising like gorge in her throat and the pegasus starting to eye her cagily, she took a long, hot breath, and forced herself to go over it slowly.

That shouldn’t have been necessary. It shouldn’t have been necessary to go over it as slowly and methodically as she did when she was ten years old and first learning how to do these things with horses. Then again, there were a lot of things that shouldn’t have been necessary. Ingrid’s gaze drifted to the saddlebags, bulging with the weight of two thick ledgers (the ledgers with incriminating information had been split up among multiple riders, just to be safe), and she felt her temper rise a little higher in her throat. There were so, so many things that should not have been necessary.

The party left Aidunn behind in silence, Professor Melusine at the head of the group, her uncannily sharp eyes scanning the darkened road ahead of them for any sign of trouble. Ingrid didn’t have much hope of reaching home before evening of the next day. Even if they could ride fast and hard as under sunlight, it would have taken most of the day, but caution was required in the darkness, and Professor Melusine still would not allow Ingrid to take to the air until they had enough light to see if the hills were bristling with archers.

It was…

This was interminable. Ingrid could only follow those who went ahead of her; the snow was falling more thickly now, flurries that swirled in her eyes and obfuscated the path before them. The fat snowflakes melted on and chilled her skin, burning her cheeks. This was slow going, entirely too slow. At this rate, they were risking not reaching the monastery until after the time they had been allotted had passed, and _maybe_ Lady Rhea would be appeased by their offering of information regarding a slaver operating in the land of Fódlan, but the idea of having to brave Lady Rhea’s displeasure at _all_ was—

A horseman pulled up at her left.

“What troubles you?”

Ingrid stiffened.

Edelgard had pulled up the thick, fur-lined hood of her maroon wool cloak, but only so that it sat on the crown of her head; even in a land that wasn’t her own, it did not appear that she had any interest in going about the business of traveling with her cloak hood yanked down her face like a common highwayman. Snow gathered in her hair, glittering in the scant light they dared cast over their path like diamonds in a tiara of polished silver. Never mind that she traveled incognito and had allowed no one to acknowledge her rank on this trip; even the weather acknowledged her royalty.

Ingrid had read a story as a child regarding the ancient and fantastical Queen of Winter. Were her mood other than what it was, she might have appreciated the resemblance between Edelgard and that lady. As it was, it was all Ingrid could do to recall Edelgard’s temporal rank, and try to pull her face into some semblance of composure, so as not to shame herself in front of such a personage.

“I am not troubled,” Ingrid tried to assure her. Tried to make it so within her own mind. “The wind and the snow pains me. That is all.”

And perhaps in other circumstances, Edelgard would have let it go at that. But for whatever reason, this was not one of those circumstances. “Nonsense,” she scoffed. “No matter what your feelings regarding the wind and the snow, they were not what put that scowl on your face.” She pursed her lips, peering intently at Ingrid’s face. “Or that look into your eyes. What is it that troubles you?” Edelgard’s eyes narrowed. “Though I suppose I can guess,” she murmured.

A hot, giddy laugh reverberated in Ingrid’s mouth. “Can you? I’m not certain how, considering how many I might have to choose from.”

Edelgard gave no retort to that. She merely kept on looking into Ingrid’s face, one of her hands going to stroke her horse’s ear absently.

The longer Edelgard looked at her, the more knowing that look became. The longer Ingrid labored under that knowing look, the more foolish she felt for having tried to obfuscate at all. At last, she sighed. She tightened her grip on the reins, only to wince when she heard her mount nicker nervously. After petting the pegasus’s flanks, she nodded choppily at Edelgard.

She was being foolish.

“I’m angry,” she admitted, in lower a voice than should have been required, considering that she was among friends, and none of these friends seemed to be trying to eavesdrop. “I’m angry, and not for the reasons I should be. That man, he…”

Ingrid tried to think of it, and couldn’t. Not in specific words, or images. For once, her mind fell down on the task of visualizing something as it must have been, and she could only take it as a sign of the situation she was in that she was grateful for that. A failure of imagination did not typically bode well, and yet…

“That man, he preyed on people. He gained their trust, and then he used that trust to _sell_ them. And he did it over, and over again. He sold them, and different lords and ladies bought them, and no one thought about whether or not it was right to do something like this because they were from a different land.” Ingrid sank her fingers into her hair, clutching tightly at a lock. “But that’s not what I keep getting angry about.”

Her scalp was hurting. Slowly, so slowly, she forced herself to relinquish her grip on her hair.

Edelgard frowned at her. No question spoken, but Ingrid could hear what was going through her mind, what she was keeping gated behind her teeth. She could hear it as clearly as if it had been shouted.

“I keep…” She wanted to scream, but she’d not screamed in temper since she was maybe five years old. She wasn’t a child anymore; soon, the law would count her a full adult. She could not scream in anger. “I keep thinking of the face Kneller must have presented to my father. I keep thinking of what he promised our family. He may never have said the words to my father’s face, but the promise of such a massive bride price would have spoken for itself. That man came to my father and promised him the salvation of our family.

“But it was all a lie. I cannot fathom how Kneller could have expected his crimes to remain concealed forever; if he was brazen enough to write evidence of them into ledgers detailing legitimate business transactions, _certainly_ it would have come out eventually. Even if it was only revealed upon his death, the revelation would have been completely _ruinous_ to my family. House Galatea would _never_ have recovered from its association with a slaver. We would have lost face in the eyes of our people, we would have lost the respect of our peers, and lost the trust of our king. It would have been a black mark on our reputation, a stain that would never come out.”

 _Much like any loss of my virtue_ , came the irresistible thought.

But that was not what this was about.

Well, not directly.

There came again the urge to scream, pushed down with perhaps a little more difficulty this time. “He dangled salvation before us, and now, it’s gone. I don’t know…” Words curdled in Ingrid’s mouth, turning sour like spoiled milk. She tried to take a deep breath, and couldn’t. Air would not come but shallowly; her hands shook upon the reins. “…I don’t know when anything like that will come again. We may never have an opportunity like that again, not in my lifetime. That’s what I’m angry about, what I’m _really_ angry about: he dangled hope in front of my family, but it wasn’t _real_.”

Father had sent Ingrid a letter regarding the potential engagement. Mother and Grandmother must have known about it as well. Had her brothers known about it? Séverin and Marcel, who spent so much time chasing the tourney circuit around the country, risking injury, risking loss of valuable steeds, risking life itself chasing the elusive dream of prize money. Henrik, who had been sent away to be a page because _any_ third son of a poor house would have needed to make his own way in the world, but also because the pinch had come, and they just could not afford to feed him as well as he needed to be fed as a boy of his age, and yet maintain the proper appearance (as close as they ever came, anyways) of a noble house in the Kingdom.

Even the flat sum of the bride price would have been enough to resolve all outstanding debts, and then let the family live comfortably for the next several years. If wisely invested, it would have been the foundation of newfound wealth for their family. If wisely invested, House Galatea could have been a properly wealthy house. There would have been none of the embarrassment of going to court in clothes noticeably shabbier than every other noble family’s. There would have been none of the inconvenience of being unable to keep the castle properly heated in the winter. There would have been none of the fear of being unable to keep the children properly fed.

And now, that was all gone. They could not accept money that had come from human misery and criminal enterprise. The revelation of it would not have just left them as poor as they were before; it would have left them utterly destitute. There was every chance they could have been downgraded in rank for their association with such a man, from counts to viscounts or maybe barons. Their lands could have been assigned a new overlord, and they the vassals of Duke Fraldarius or Count Charon. They could have been stripped of their lands and title altogether, and while that might have freed them to seek employment elsewhere, Ingrid knew the most likely result of that would have been. With the shame upon them so great that few people, if anyone at all, would have been willing to give them charity, they would have been houseless vagabonds. Others could resolve their dishonor by taking religious orders as a penitent knight in the Knights of Seiros, but Ingrid and her older brothers, with such a stain upon them, would have no doubt been turned away.

(Catherine had not been turned away, and in her case, what had heaped dishonor upon her had been what she had done with her own hands. That was different, though. That was different.)

Most likely, they would have starved.

And Ingrid would have been the vehicle by which her house was brought to ruin.

She knew what the tale of House Galatea’s destruction would have been. It would have been what it always was, if that one element was present in even a tangential sense:

They would say of House Galatea that it had been laid low by a woman.

They would say that House Galatea’s daughter had been its destruction.

They would forget Ingrid’s name, would forget everything about her, every dream she ever had, strip away her personality and her soul, and make her into a cautionary tale.

Ingrid had never thought very much about other girls who were made into cautionary tales.

She was thinking about them now.

And she should have been thinking about something else far more. Her thoughts should have been consumed by the people who had been sold into slavery at Niklaus Kneller’s direction, but they just weren’t.

“I…” It felt like dragging a cilice made of metal wire across her skin to say it. It felt like dragging a cilice made of wire across her tongue to even _think_ it. She could not for the life of her think of a single way to keep from saying it. “I should be worried about all of those people. I should be angry that Kneller betrayed their trust for his own benefit. I should be angry that they could still be slaving away even now, and that no one has done anything because of where those people were born. And I _am_.” She sucked a breath through gritted teeth. The frigid blast of air in her mouth did nothing to cool her mind. “But I keep thinking about what he would have done to _us_. I should be angry regarding his other victims, but I keep thinking about how he would have ruined our family so he could have a Crest in _his_.

“And I don’t know _why_.” There it was. “With what we found in Aidunn, the ruin he could have brought on House Galatea will not come to pass. The people he enslaved were not able to avoid that fate. I should be angrier on their behalf than on my own, and yet I _still feel this way_. I still feel this way, and I don’t know why.”

Her voice had risen. Ingrid only realized that on the very last syllable, when the words leaving her mouth began to grate on her throat like a serrated knife. Her eyes darted around what little she could see of the rest of the party. Linhardt gazed at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment, but soon turned his back and his attention back upon the road. The rest did not seem to give her a second thought. It was as if she’d been shouting into an empty room.

Avoiding the embarrassment that would have come from a large, attentive audience was… Ingrid would not lie and say it was not appreciated. It was also, considering she was dealing with a bunch of curious teenagers, more than a little strange.

While Ingrid had been pondering on the absence of so many pairs of eyes watching her devolve to childish shouting, Edelgard had been staring ahead, her lips pursed. When she turned her gaze back to Ingrid, the shadows cast by her cloak hood made it impossible to discern exactly what expression she wore. The wind did nothing to hide her clear, even tone.

“I cannot say what lies in your mind or in your heart,” Edelgard told her, oddly diffidently. “It is not for me to dictate your thoughts to you. But I believe you already have the answer, whatever that might be.” She spurred her horse on to take her to the head of the party. As she rode away, she called behind her, “Your anger would not be so great if you were not very close to it.”

Left alone, Ingrid let out a whickering sigh that made her sound rather more like her pegasus than she was entirely pleased with, but it could not be helped.

 _How could he not have heard any rumors?_ slipped out, before being forced back down with all the mercy of using a steel shield to beat an enemy into unconsciousness.

Very close to it.

Yes, she supposed she was very close to it.

There was just one problem: it was leading her to more places than she had thought it would, and some of those places were home.

-

Dawn approached in a snowy gloom, the clouds so thick and so dark that light came to them in nothing more than a dim haze more suited to twilight than the dawn of a new day. In perhaps an hour and a half, there would be enough light to see by, and Ingrid had hoped that Professor Melusine would be willing to bend the rule she had established enough to let Ingrid have her pegasus stretch her wings, but nothing doing. When she asked, she got an uncommonly sharp look, even for a woman who was full of sharp looks, a silent nod, and the strong impression that failing to abide by this decision would have resulted in a thrashing on the training grounds once they returned to Garreg Mach.

Soon, it became clear to Ingrid that it was not just concern for Ingrid that motivated Professor Melusine in her behavior. Silently, she bade the horsemen and the carriage to ride considerably closer together than they had before, so that they were all packed in closer than the horses and pegasi particularly cared for.

For a precious few minutes, Ingrid was ignorant as to the why. For those few precious minutes, she heard only, she heard only the crunch of snow beneath hooves and wagon wheels, the grumbling mutters of her fellow travelers before Professor Melusine shushed them, and the wind moaning through the trees and across the steep hills of the Oghma Mountains. For those few precious minutes, Ingrid felt only the pricking impatience of being made to pack in like that without any explanation as to why.

But soon, all too soon, it became clear that this was no idle whim of their leader’s. Professor Melusine pulled close to Edelgard and Hubert. The pair of them were close enough to Ingrid that she could hear Professor Melusine mutter, “We are being followed.”

Hubert nodded. He did not look grim or worried. This, it seemed, was just a mundane part of the daily life of Hubert von Vestra. “I surmised as much. For how long have we been pursued?”

“I am uncertain,” came the murmured response. “I first noticed signs of them a few miles out from Aidunn. This is the only road west from the town; I thought little of it at first. It is possible they have been following us from as far as Aidunn itself.”

Hubert made a small tsking noise in the back of his throat. “I had not expected our activities to go unnoticed. Still, they have picked up the scent quicker than I expected.”

Ingrid drank all of that in, the cold of late autumn diving down her throat to freeze her stomach and her heart. They were being followed. They had possibly been followed as far back as Aidunn. Galatea territory being nearly empty of people besides, the Kingdom was crawling with bandits, and Ingrid had little doubt that that occasionally spilled over the border into the Alliance. If they were just your typical, garden-variety bandits, even highwaymen with horses, Ingrid thought they could have handled the problem that presented. Most bandits had more desperation or greed to their names than they did combat training; many of them were farmers who’d suffered one too many failed harvests. But if they had come from Aidunn itself…

If they had come from Aidunn itself, they most likely were not ordinary bandits. Not ordinary bandits at all.

_I can understand why a merchant might have someone watch his offices while he’s away from them. It would not do to not discover thefts until months after they occurred. But why follow us? Why not go to the authorities instead, rather than risking the complications that could come from confronting a group of nobles directly?_

She had the answer to that question in her saddlebags. Kneller had made his wealth on crime. He knew it, and most likely, the men who were following them now knew that as well. In that case, their instructions could have been to recover stolen property at all costs, _without_ alerting any authorities.

_Criminals, or mercenaries?_

If the latter, they could have more problems scaring them off than Ingrid had thought.

Hubert took it upon himself to alert the rest of the group to the presence of their pursuers. Bernadetta tried to kick up a fuss, but was quickly hushed. Caspar tried to as well, if for rather different reasons, and was hushed with somewhat greater difficulty. They began to pick up the pace, staying as closely packed together as before while riding down the road into the Kingdom.

 _Will they still follow us once we have crossed the border into Galatea territory?_ Ingrid chanced a look behind her. They had been riding downhill, and through the flurries of snow and the groping tree branches that encroached on the narrow, winding road, she could see someone following them. Men on horseback, hooded and cloaked. Whether they were armed, Ingrid could not tell at this distance. It would be wiser to assume that they were. After all, it was difficult to retrieve stolen goods without the appropriate methods of “persuasion” in your possession.

Ingrid’s heart was hammering in her chest, but her hands itched for the lance secured to her back. Let it come to confrontation, let it come to battle, and then she could be useful. Then, she could vent some of what had been building inside of her these past several days.

_He won’t be there._

_I’d love to sink my lance into_ him _._

_He won’t be there._

It would not be enough to rid her of all that crawled inside her.

_How could he not have found any of this out on his own?_

It would not be enough at all.

Morning never came. Perhaps, somewhere further south where the weather was kinder to travelers, the clouds would break enough to allow for the sun to light the earth, to give what little warmth it was capable of when snow began to blanket the land. Somewhere else, there must have been sunlight. Here, still, there were dense coal-gray clouds that gave the world a level of light more appropriate to twilight verging on full dark. They might have lit lanterns, if not for the concern that there could be archers among their pursuers, who would take lantern light as a beacon to fire at.

The border crossing into Galatea territory was just as devoid of guards as the crossing into Daphnel territory had been. When they had been trying to get to Aidunn, that had been counted a blessing—no being detained, no trying to think of innocent (lying) answers to any awkward questions posed by her father. Now, Ingrid marked the deserted border crossing with a tooth of anxiety gnawing at her stomach. Guards would have been useful for scaring off their pursuers. Guards would have been useful for reaching home safely.

“They follow us still,” Professor Melusine announced. She wasn’t keeping her voice down anymore. She did not seem to think that there was any point. “The mountains will soon give way. It will be easier for them to close in and attack once we are on more level ground.”

They would not need to hurt them to inflict damage. All they would need to do to hurt Ingrid was swoop in, steal the ledger, and make their way back over the border into the Alliance. Whether they destroyed the ledgers or else alerted Alliance authorities to the initial theft, if they took the ledgers, they would do all the harm to Ingrid that needed to be done.

Her father would require proof of Kneller’s wrongdoings before he would consent to send Kneller packing. It was _tangible_ proof he would want, something he could hold in his hands. He would not accept the word of witnesses. _He will not accept my word._ If she had nothing to bring to her father, he would not send Kneller away. Ingrid would not accept Kneller’s suit, and her father would go on pressuring her to accept him, all the while scolding her for trying to slander the man with “baseless rumors,” and Ingrid…

Ingrid did not know what she would do.

She did not know what would be destroyed by whatever choice she made. Her imagination was working, feverishly and utterly unbidden, to paint her a picture.

Light flared at the edge of her vision. A harsh wind carried the smell of brimstone to her nose.

Her heart now felt like it would burst, its exertions utterly unequal to the running she had left to her pegasus. It was mad, the idea germinating in her mind. The danger of implementing it far outweighed the danger they were in now, and the danger wasn’t just to them. The horses and pegasi were already showing strain from long hours of exertion with no chance for rest; this would only push them closer to their breaking points. But if it worked…

If it worked, they would not have to worry about their pursuers any longer.

(And if it did not work, Ingrid would almost certainly not have to worry about anything, ever again.)

“Professor!” Ingrid called to Professor Melusine. “I have an idea.”

The idea had seemed mad in Ingrid’s own mind. Those who listened to her plan thought it mad as well. But it was the only one they had.

With Ingrid in the lead, the group abandoned the wagon, left the road, and tore into the depths of the pine barrens.

Ingrid had never been to this part of Galatea territory before. The road to Fraldarius territory avoided it, even at the expense of going several miles out of their way. Ingrid had ever been forbidden to come this way, even before her freedoms when it came to wandering and exploration had been curtailed. She knew little of the terrain of this part of the territory.

There was a reason she knew little of this part of the territory.

The snow was thinner in the pine barrens, even after accounting for all the tree branches blocking its descent to the ground. The roar of ten thousand tongues of flame that had been audible even up in the mountains grew louder and louder with every step the horses took, dimming the noise of Ingrid’s jumbled thoughts. Heat touched her where she would never have expected it outside in any other part of the territory at this part of the year, so that she had begun to sweat under her clothes. Every instinct within her told her to turn tail and drive her pegasus as fast as she could in the other direction. Instead, she spurred the beast to go faster.

After about a mile and a half, maybe two miles, the pine trees started to look… different. Even at the outer boundary, the pine trees were sickly in appearance, with short, stubby branches foliated only sparsely with pine needles. But as they moved further into the barrens, the trees got shorter, more bent and twisted, with no pine cones or pine needles to be seen.

They were… wrong. Ingrid did not mean the sores on the tree trunks, oozing some white, pus-like liquid that gave off such a foul odor to be discernable even above the gusts of wind heavily laden with the reek of brimstone. Trees could suffer blights like that; Ingrid had seen it before. They were just… wrong. They had taken on the hue of ash, like dead things, but how could that be? The blight would have died with the trees. No, the trees looked as though they were becoming something other than what they were.

Then, the trees stopped altogether.

Already, the heat was growing oppressive. Now, sweat formed beads upon Ingrid’s brow, though she was not able to track it for long. The heat caused the snow that had been falling to liquefy into raindrops about halfway to the ground, raindrops that weighed down Ingrid’s clothes and mad her hair cling to her face and neck. The ground was coated with coarse gray ash; what little of the ground was visible beneath the ash was utterly black, and had clearly been scorched—the Goddess venting her fury, over and over again, until there was nothing that could grow at all.

Maybe three miles like that, and then, fiery red light spilled from the broken earth, revealing a valley of jagged, uneven shape, like overlapping circles, down steep, nearly sheer cliffs. Revealing a valley of scorched earth and rivers of fire.

Ingrid’s only consolation was that her saddlebags were so secure that no water would be able to touch the ledgers.

A blast of hot air heavy with brimstone shot up from the valley—a sign of just how welcome they were likely to be here.

Well, if the Goddess did not want intruders upon the site of her terrible wrath, may she smite the pursuers before she smote Ingrid or any of her companions.

 _We carry her blessing in our blood, nearly all of us, and the Goddess protects the righteous. Please, protect us now. Please, see me through this safely. Please, see me through this with all of the information we gathered still in my possession. Please,_ she implored silently, _do not let my friends be killed on my account, by any cause._

Ingrid did not know if the Goddess was listening. She had always attended church services as a matter of course. It was what a proper lady did, and if she could be a proper lady in nothing else, Ingrid could at least be proper in _this_. She had prayed often. She could never tell if the Goddess was listening.

She hoped the Goddess was listening to her now. She _really_ did.

They had followed her this far. They had gone so far out of their way to help her. Yes, she thought she could call them all her friends, now, even if she did not know many of them very well. If, by blade or by the fire, they were to die because of her, Ingrid did not know how she would live with the shame.

She did not know how she would live with the shame of being the wife of Niklaus Kneller. This was the best place to go to either shake their pursuers, or force a confrontation with them. She must see this through.

“Are we really going down _there_?” Bernadetta demanded, but without the panic in her voice that Ingrid would have expected. Instead, her voice ran dull, almost numb, as if she was too tired to work herself up into a panic properly.

But then, they were all tired.

(Well, not Ingrid. Ingrid was not feeling tired. She knew she should be, knew that she had had no sleep the night before, had spent the last three hours or so being pursued, and that her body must, after all of this, feel tired. She couldn’t feel it. Her blood was racing, and her mind was racing even faster. Fatigue just could not reach her.)

“Yes,” Ingrid said heavily. “We are going down there.”

Needless to say, Ingrid had never been to Ailell. She had no familiarity with the terrain, could not begin to guess what she could expect here. With anywhere else, she could have consulted a map, but this was Ailell. A map would not have helped at all. Not in a place where rivers of fire shaped the landscape to their liking, _whenever_ they liked.

“Where are we to make our descent?” Professor Melusine asked sharply. “I don’t see a path either we or our horses could traverse.”

“We’ll have to search for a spot where the cliffs are not so sheer.” The horses were going to be a problem. Already, they were visibly nervous; a couple of them looked ready to bolt. “Hopefully we’ll find a path for the descent before those men catch up to us, or they will see that we have vanished and think we went some other way.”

The air was dry as the interior of an oven, and for a moment, she imagined it cooking them all just so. The men chasing after them would scale the cliffs, take the ledgers from their dead steeds, and then never make it back up the cliffs, cooking in the massive ovens of Ailell. All of them dead and forgotten, Ingrid’s parents left to forever wonder what had become of her. All of her family’s dreams dying with her.

One thing at a time. She was not dead yet. One thing at a time.

Edelgard pulled her horse up to them. She had thrown back the hood of her cloak, and now in her hair there was not a crown of snow, but a veil of ash clinging to every lock and strand. “And where will we come back up from? Not the way we came from, surely?”

“No, we will have to find another means of ascent.”

To that, Edelgard cast a long look back at the diseased and unnatural pine trees, and nodded slowly. “I will leave that to you.” And even over the roar of the flames that bellowed up from Ailell, Ingrid could make out the reluctance in her voice. “But I would tell you to be swift.”

Yes, no doubt their pursuers were not too far behind them. Ingrid turned back to face the rest of the group. For a moment, she did not speak, merely drank in the sight of their faces. The ash spewing up from the valley far below had already begun to settle on their clothes and hair and stain their skin. Everyone looked tired. Most of them seemed anxious, but none of them looked particularly as if they wanted to run away. Indeed, nearly all of the Black Eagles looked grimly resolute, ready for whatever peril might come, whatever peril that might be. Ingrid even thought that Bernadetta was not looking as if she wanted to run away.

She knew barely any of them as more than casual acquaintances, and they were willing to follow her _this_ far. Ingrid’s stomach swooped, injecting her with a sick giddiness that might have carried her off the ground, were she not so sick with fear that her fear shackled her to the ground.

She must seem them through this safely.

“When we go down into the valley,” Ingrid called out to them, shouting to make herself heard over the wind and the roar of the flames down below, “we must stay close to the cliffs.” The rain had stopped. Whether it had stopped snowing beyond the pine barrens, or if it was just so hot this close to Ailell that no rain could fall here, Ingrid could not begin to guess, and quickly deemed trying to guess as something not worth her time. “Ailell has never been mapped, but I have heard enough to know that the danger to us will only grow the deeper into the valley we ride.”

Far below them was scorched black earth never afforded the opportunity to heal from the wounds the Goddess had inflicted upon it. Rivers of fire flowed across the floor of the valley. Nothing lived there. The valley bred fire, and smoke and steam, and reeking, poisonous ash that killed crops and sickened farm animals. This was not a healthy place. This was not a place for the living.

By the time they found a place where the horses could descend in relative safety, it had proven to be too much for some of the beasts. They were not dead, thankfully, but Caspar and Professor Melusine were dismounting their horses, the latter transferring the ledgers in her saddlebags to the saddlebags on the horse currently shared by Ferdinand and Dorothea.

“Let the horses go,” Professor Melusine told Caspar, who had grabbed the reins of the two panicking animals and was trying with some awkwardness to calm them.

Caspar cast her a dubious look, a hesitant, disbelieving almost-smile hooked on his mouth. “Seriously?”

Professor Melusine nodded crisply. “I will account for it when we return to Garreg Mach. If we attempted to force them down the cliff, they would only fall and die, likely taking one of us with them.”

As unhappy as Caspar had seemed to be to let the horses go, he was apparently even more unhappy with the prospect of being dragged over the edge of a cliff by a panicking horse. “Sure,” he muttered, as he let loose the reins and the horses promptly charged back into the pine barrens. “I fight better with my feet on the ground, anyways.”

Many of them did, Ingrid would suspect. But they were going to need the horses. As long as the horses could last, they would need them. Hopefully, it would not come to battle, and hopefully, if it did, the awkwardness of fighting on horseback would not be enough to kill any of her friends.

Ingrid and Petra took the shortcut down the cliffs into the valley, their pegasi lighting on a patch of ground that was not smoking quite so much as the patches of ground around them (though the two beasts still shifted their weight from hoof to hoof in obvious discomfort), while everyone else was still gingerly picking their way down a narrow, crumbling path in the cliff. Ingrid watched them in trepidation, sweat pouring down her face while her mouth ran drier and drier. Her pegasus whickered in distress; Ingrid stroked her flank, trying to give her some water out of her goatskin.

“Not long,” she murmured to the pegasus. “We will not be here long. Just hold on a little longer.”

If this venture wound up costing her even the life of the pegasus, she thought she might actually die of the shame.

At last, every member of the party that had accompanied Ingrid out of Garreg Mach was down the cliff, but they had little time to catch their breath. Practically the moment all of them were down on level ground, their pursuers appeared at the edge of the cliff, horses gone, and were following them down with such haste that Ingrid felt her mouth run even drier.

What had Kneller told them regarding potential thieves that was so compelling that they would follow them down even into the Valley of Torment with such patent eagerness?

Ingrid was not the only one wondering that. “I do wonder,” Linhardt muttered, crouched low over the back of his already-gray, currently-grayer horse, “exactly what they look to gain from following us down here. _I_ certainly would not have chased us here just to get a ledger back.” His eyes glazed over. “Now, if it was a book on forgotten Crests…”

“Lin, maybe you should be focusing more on what’s happening in front of us?” Dorothea suggested, a faint bite souring the musicality of her voice as she slid from the back of Ferdinand’s horse.

It would be coming down to a fight, it seemed. If Dorothea was certain enough of that to slide down from the relative safety of horseback to the ground she was so much steadier on, then Ingrid supposed she herself could deny it no longer. They were going to fight. On account of her, they were going to fight.

 _On account of Niklaus Kneller being a hardened reprobate, we will fight_.

She tried to tell herself that. She would be trying to tell herself that a lot.

In this moment, Ingrid found herself drawing her lance. Its weight was comforting in her hands, the prospect of venting all that had been building up inside of her even more so. If these men wanted to rob her of what semblance of a future remained to her, she would take it out of their hides. If they wanted to aid Niklaus Kneller in destroying the reputation and the future of House Galatea, she would make them pay for that in blood. She could do no less.

Most of the men who had followed them down into this forsaken land were shabbily dressed, but while they were poorly armed, they were still _armed_. Most had swords or axes, but some had bows, and all looked more hardened and battle-ready than their shabby clothes or old, notched, and rusting weapons would have suggested. Still, Ingrid’s group had Professor Melusine with them, and even if she had left the Sword of the Creator in the monastery for reasons of discretion, she had made her fearsome reputation without it. Still, Ingrid’s group was not unblooded themselves, and they had the superior weaponry (And, Ingrid hoped, the superior training as well).

She held her lance at the ready, and waited.

The two groups stared at each other from across a patch of black, smoking ground. The air reeked with sulfur and roared with hungry fire. Ingrid gripped the shaft of her lance so tightly that she thought she could hear the wood start to creak.

Then, a man pushed his way to the front of the group that had followed them down the cliff. He did not look like a fighter, not the way these other men did. He was better-dressed than them, and bore no weapons—a magic-wielder, perhaps? To Ingrid, his dress looked rather like the dress of an Alliance merchant.

A horrible suspicion dawned on her.

Ingrid looked to Dorothea who, though pale, shook her head. “That’s not him,” she confirmed. “I… haven’t seen him before.”

What relief this provided Ingrid was short-lived. The maybe-merchant scanned the faces of the crowd opposite him. When his eyes lit on Ingrid, he stilled. After a long moment when he did naught but stare, he pointed her out to the other men and shouted, “Bring me the girl!”

The heat of Ailell was renowned all over Fódlan. If you had heard of Ailell, you had heard of the fires that never went out, the fires that burned in summer and winter alike, the fires that heated this part of the land beyond the ability of living things to endure for more than a couple of hours at a stretch.

Ingrid had heard of it. Living within geographical spitting distance of Ailell, she had been raised on stories of Ailell. Even though Ingrid had never been to Ailell before now, she had known what to expect from it.

She had expected burning, baking heat.

She had expected heat almost beyond endurance.

She had expected heat that _would_ prove to be beyond endurance, if she strayed too far into the valley or stayed here too long.

She had not expected to stand within Ailell and feel cold.

“Surely, he can’t mean me!”

But as soon as the words were out of Ingrid’s mouth, she knew he meant her. If he meant her, then everything about the pursuit would now make perfect sense. These men had followed more heavily-armed strangers all the way from Aidunn. They had followed them over the border of the Alliance into the Kingdom who, thanks to an inability to hold prisoners in too many numbers for too long, tended to exact far more draconian punishments upon convicted criminals than the Alliance. They had followed them into _Ailell_ , where punishments shot from ‘draconian’ to ‘instantly lethal’ if you put your foot wrong. None of it made sense if it was the ledgers they were after. If it was the ledgers they were after, surely they would have taken pause at some point before this. If it was just the ledgers, _surely_ they would have sooner cut their losses than go down the treacherous path into Ailell.

If it was not the ledgers they were after, if it was _her_ , then all of this made so much more sense. No doubt they were being paid well for her capture. No doubt they were being paid very well, indeed.

Dorothea laughed in irritation. “This jerk figures he can grab Ingrid before things get too messy for him.” Her soot-stained brow furrowed. “Of course—“ and now, her bravado was starting to fade, a flower wilting in the tremendous heat “—we know the truth about him now, and he’ll want to kill us and get rid of the evidence.”

Ingrid scrubbed her brow. “I’m so sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t be,” Dorothea retorted, glowering at her. “ _None_ of this is your fault, and we are _not_ gonna let them have you. Protect Ingrid!” she shouted, and here her training as an opera singer served her well, for her voice rang a clarion call easily audible over the competing voices of Ailell’s fires. “Don’t let anyone get near her!”

As the battle kicked off in earnest, Ingrid cursed herself for her lack of forethought. How could she have been fool enough not to expect something like this? History was littered with tales of rapacious suitors who, when their prospective wives (or, less commonly, husbands) would not accept them, took it upon themselves to claim a new spouse by any means necessary. And how had Kneller made his wealth? By abduction. Why not suspect he would be willing to claim a bride in just the same way?

_The bride price was the lure. It was all he needed to get my father’s attention, to persuade my father to let a wolf in through the front door. Did he ever intend to pay it? Or was he always just going to ruin my family and not even bother to pay them for the privilege?_

It was with a restless, almost sweet rage that Ingrid fell upon her would-be abductors. She cut, thrust, and stabbed, and however her pegasus might have felt about her treatment over the last several hours, once airborne, she was fleet enough to successfully dodge any and all sword and axe strokes, any and all arrows.

If they wanted her, she would make them pay for it in blood. She was not a hostage. She was not a damsel in distress waiting to be rescued from a tower. She was not a damsel from a story, a useless cipher who couldn’t do anything for herself and was to be known only for her helplessness in the face of peril. She was not weak. She was not so weak that she would let these men carry her off to be a hostage-bride to a monster wearing a human mask.

This was not a storybook, and Ingrid was not a lady from a song. Woe betide anyone who mistook her for such. Anyone who tried to take her away from here in bonds would go to meet the Goddess.

Her anger boiled inside of her, a beast all its own. But there was still a lump of ice in Ingrid’s mind, and with every moment that the fight wore on, it grew larger and heavier.

If any of her friends died here, it would have been her fault. They would not have been here, if not for her. They would not have been in danger, if not for her. The men seeking to abduct her knew the rest of them only as her traveling companions. They knew her friends only as loose ends to be tied up—or cut out with a rusty knife.

 _But suppose that that isn’t the case?_ a small voice, growing louder with each passing moment, pressed at her.

Suppose it wasn’t.

Many of the people in Ingrid’s group were valuable hostages in their own right. Ferdinand, Hubert, Bernadetta, and Linhardt were all the heirs to their noble houses; as far as Ingrid knew, none of them had siblings who could have become the new heirs if something befell them. Professor Melusine was the one and only child of the captain of the Knights of Seiros, and high in the favor of the Archbishop. Petra was the future queen of Brigid, and was she to die in Fódlan, her death could reignite hostilities between Brigid and the Empire. Edelgard was to become the _Adrestian emperor_. (She had been a hostage before, had the threat of danger hanging over her every moment, at the hands of her uncle, the hands of her own uncle, how could I ever put her in such peril again how could I how could I how could I—)

Any of them would have made valuable hostages. More valuable hostages than Ingrid, daughter of an impoverished house, if she was being very honest. If these men realized who any of them were, realized how much money they could make from ransoming them…

Another shame Ingrid was uncertain how she would live with. She was accumulating those at a rapid clip.

And what Kneller planned to do with her, once he had her…

Ingrid swallowed bile, the heat returning to her all at once, making her eyes sting and her head swim. She did not think about that, right now. (Oh, how tight her skin felt on her bones. Oh, how heavy her lance felt in her arms. Oh, how small she felt.) She _could not_ think about that, right now. If she thought about it, if she gave her mind over to the formless and nameless beasts that ruled her imagination…

(But how heard stories, didn’t you? You heard stories about what happened to noblewomen with Crests and demanding husbands, didn’t you? Ingrid heard them. They were prolific, and she had always loved stories. They had always been cautionary tales when they were told to her, though she was never entirely certain who they were supposed to be cautioning, as a woman had precious little recourse against _demanding_ husbands unless she was from a considerably more powerful family—and could maintain her connections with her considerably more powerful family.

Ingrid had never been so divorced from reality as to believe that it could _never_ happen to her, but it had never seemed particularly… Never seemed particularly likely.

Now, it was—)

For the rest of her life, though Ingrid had no idea how long, exactly, the battle wore on, she would never be in a battle that felt longer than this. The blazing, shimmering heat devoured time the way Ingrid descended upon a meal at the monastery after a long afternoon of training. They had thought that killing the merchant, who was plainly in charge of the other men, might convince the rest to scatter and retreat, but Professor Melusine had run up and done the deed herself, and nothing doing. Whatever they were being offered as reward for Ingrid’s capture, it was clearly compelling.

_If they take me alive—_

Ingrid’s hands itched upon the shaft of her lance. They no longer itched for battle. They were itching for something different. Violence, still, but of a different breed than battle.

Wherever they turned, there were more of these men. Whenever Ingrid thought they were wearing down the enemy’s numbers, more would emerge from behind a scorched boulder or a shadowy outcropping. This was so ridiculous that had the situation been other than what it was, Ingrid thought she might have laughed. Had _every_ _single_ common criminal in Aidunn and the surrounding countryside been enlisted to kidnap her and bring her back to her would-be husband?

 _What lies will he tell my father if he catches me? Will he ever let me see my family again? Or will I be kept somewhere far away from home, far away from anyone who knows me, far away from anyone at all?_ There were ways of keeping people confined, even if those people were the sort who could hold their own in battle. Was that to be her fate, then, caged like a rare animal, coveted and confined?

(She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this. When she thought about this, it was difficult to think about anything else.)

When, at last, all of the men who had followed them from Aidunn lied dead, already cooking on the merciless ground of Ailell, Ingrid drew a ragged breath, and promptly choked on brimstone.

Pain stabbed her lungs like slender little knives, not a dull ache but sharp, unforgiving spikes of pain. Her throat burned as if she had drank fire from one of the many rivers that crisscrossed the valley. Her mind still felt as if she was harboring a lump of ice inside.

One by one, Ingrid picked out her friends from the shadows, from the glow of flames, from wisps of steam and smoke that ever rose up from the ground. They all looked somewhat the worse for wear—no one had gotten out entirely unscathed, sporting cuts and bruises and burns, and now that the battle was done, Ingrid could feel a sharp sting in her left harm that she’d not noticed before—but they were all alive. They were all intact. Somehow, they had all come out of this alive.

It was over.

It was over.

It was over.

(No, it wasn’t.)


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : First, the general unpleasantness of unwanted medical examinations, that I don’t know how to describe but which I know from personal experience is one of the most miserably unpleasant things I’m likely to experience in the course of my daily life; vomiting; discussion of rape; discussion of forced marriage; discussion of forced impregnation; societal misogyny]

In the end, they did end up heading back up the cliffs from the way they had gone down. All of their pursuers dead, there had been no point to try to find a different way back up. No need to make a swift escape.

By some miracle, none of the horses, though exhausted and dehydrated and worse off for the heat and smoke, had been harmed in the battle, and they had no more difficulty getting them up and out of the valley than would have been expected of horses in any case. Ingrid and Petra were able to fly their pegasi out of Ailell as easily as they had flown them down _into_ Ailell.

There would be no further riding, though, not for a long time. They could not afford to give the horses all the rest they needed, but neither could they afford to go on riding them all the way to the Galatea keep. Not unless they wanted several tons of dead horseflesh on their hands, and not a single butcher among them. No one was particularly eager to butcher the horses. Even Ingrid, who alone among them had experienced true famine and been unable to just pick up and move away from it, had no desire to kill their beasts.

Once everyone was up on the cliff, there was no bothering to seek out the shelter of the trees, not right away. All anyone was interested in doing was finding a patch of ground somewhat blanketed with ash than the others, and collapsing upon it. The horses and pegasi, once left unattended, were either too well-trained or too exhausted to run off, and just stood where they had been left, periodically making small, whining noises of distress.

Ingrid eyed her pegasus cagily as she lowered herself off of her back. She made no attempt to fly off, but she detached the saddlebags, just in case. The ledgers in her saddlebags contained the most damning of the evidence against Kneller. Ingrid wasn’t letting them out of her sight until they were in her father’s hands.

She wasn’t letting the ledgers out of her sight, and neither was she standing with them in her grasp. Same as with most of her companions, she sank down onto the ground, sitting with her stiff, sore legs folded beneath her.

Her hands were shaking. She tried, and failed, to still them.

It was over.

It was over.

She had fought, and won. She would not be carried off in bonds, would not have the essential parts stripped from her to turn her into a hostage-bride and a cautionary tale—no ‘ _be careful where you go, or you could share the fate of the doom of House Galatea.’_ She had fought, and won. She would see her home again.

It was over.

It was over, and yet, she could not stop her hands from shaking. (Could not stop herself from imagining cold, avaricious hands on her unwilling flesh. Could not stop herself from imagining her flesh used for every last bit of extra gain Kneller could wring from it, until there was nothing left of her but flesh whose only purpose left was to become a feast for maggots.)

Ingrid, bent double over her lap, stared down at her shaking hands, and thought she would have cut them off and exchanged from for another’s if she could have had hands that would not shake like a weakling’s.

Beyond, fire boomed in what to her sounded like an agreement: yes, she was a weakling, and her shaking hands proved it. If she was stronger, she would have walked away from this battle with nary a reaction beyond grim satisfaction. If she was anything like the sort of person who could have become a knight, defending her own virtue would not have rattled her even momentarily. She was not what she had thought she was, she was—

Silver-white light flashed on her left arm, and Ingrid jolted upright.

When her searching, frantic eyes found the source of the light, it was bobbing in Linhardt’s hand, pulsing almost like a living thing. He was standing some four feet away from her, visibly wan even below the ash that stained his face. “Sorry,” Linhardt muttered. His voice was stronger on the next: “I’m still not very good with blood. I can heal your injuries, but I’d rather not be close enough to see the blood clearly.” His lip wobbled, and for a moment, Ingrid thought he might cry, but once the moment passed, he was calm, though without the touch of boredom that often colored his words and actions in the monastery. “Or smell it.”

Ingrid’s eyes drifted down to her arm. She had felt it stinging when the battle was done and the energy that had fired her then had dwindled enough for her to feel pain again, but she had never stopped to examine it once she had the time. When she looked at her arm, she saw that her sleeve was torn, and the edges of frayed fabric were stained dark—it was too dim here to make out an exact color, but she did not need proper light to know that it was the deep red of blood. The exposed skin was angry and sticky with dried blood, but the wound that had produced the blood was gone.

“Thank you,” she murmured distractedly.

She would need to cover her arm. Ailell obliterated all evidence of seasons, but her mind knew what the land did not; it was verging on winter beyond the fence of the pine barrens, and there was snow on the ground. She would need to cover any exposed flesh, lest she wished for the next healer or physician who came to her to come to her to treat frostbite.

 _The wagon,_ Ingrid thought, as she pulled her cloak down over her arm. _Our supplies were in the wagon._

Along with all of their food.

Well, the men who had followed them down into Ailell had not obviously had stolen goods on them, and Ingrid had no desire to go back down to check their corpses— _only_ as a last resort. Ingrid would have to hope that the wagon was where they had left it, that the horses had not gone too far, if not, and that no one _else_ had happened upon the wagons and decided that its contents were free for the taking. While they were out here under the cover of a wilderness survival training exercise, Ingrid knew the land well enough to know the difficulties they would have living off of it unaided until they reached her ancestral keep. She hoped they wouldn’t have to.

She hoped for so many things.

While Ingrid sat there hoping, someone was approaching her. Slowly, deliberately, for all that their feet made hardly a sound in the ash, as if they did not wish to startle her. Ingrid watched those boots get closer and closer, unwilling to lift her head to see the face of the owner of those boots. But they were women’s boots, and beneath the soot and ash that stained then, they had clearly been well-made. Their owner walked with quiet, measured assurance, and when a gloved hand appeared in Ingrid’s field of vision, it was, beneath ash stains and scorch marks, a clear, bright white.

“Can you stand?” Edelgard asked quietly, but behind the quiet, Ingrid could hear something harsh and taut clinging to her tongue.

Ingrid, still not looking into Edelgard’s face, made to stand on her own, but Edelgard did not give her the chance. As soon as it was within reach, Edelgard planted her hand under Ingrid’s elbow and hauled her the rest of the way up. Ingrid had known Edelgard to be stronger than her size and build suggested, but the effortlessness with which she hauled Ingrid to her feet startled her. It made her feel weightless, and at last, her surprise spurred her to look into Edelgard’s face.

Ingrid’s first action was to flinch reflexively, her first thought to hope that Edelgard had not noticed it. Oh, how weak she was, to quail at the first sign of something that even remotely passed for intimidating, but she had done it, and she could not take it back.

Where the stains of soot and ash made the others look ragged and woebegone, it utterly failed to have any such effect on Edelgard. Edelgard stood straight, unbowed and unbroken by fear, the ash and soot staining her clothes, hair, and skin doing nothing to make her seem any less strong, or proud, or true—indeed, the stains only added to her dignity, painting a picture of an emperor who would undergo any peril for the sake of her people. Oh, to possess that sort of strength. Oh, for Ingrid to be able to come away from what had just befallen her and stand so straight and proud as Edelgard.

(Not just dreams of knighthood that would have been thrown on the pyre of Niklaus Kneller’s ambitions. Everything Ingrid had ever held dear, everything she had ever valued, would have been swallowed whole by a rapacious fiend who saw nothing in her but a vessel for his own desires. She was not an empty vessel, not an empty vessel, not a doll to be arranged into whatever shape her owner desired, did not want to see herself in such a light…)

Edelgard’s face bore outwardly the cool composure that Ingrid had grown accustomed to over the last several months, but her eyes and her mouth gave the lie to any semblance of calm. Her mouth was a thin, pinched line, and her eyes were _blazing_. The harsh, wrathful light of Ailell seemed dim and feeble in comparison to this, a searing anger that Ingrid knew would burn if she stared into it directly.

In light of that, her hand was markedly gentle on Ingrid’s arm.

“I’m fine,” Ingrid muttered, avoiding Edelgard’s gaze.

“Are you?” Edelgard asked softly, though in Ingrid’s ears, it sounded more like a retort.

 _“Yes,”_ Ingrid snapped, but when she looked back into Edelgard’s face, she faltered, her stomach swooping unpleasantly.

The anger in Edelgard’s eyes had faded not one bit. There was something else in there with it, something softer, and unless Ingrid was very much mistaken, it was only making the fire in her eyes blaze all the brighter.

Were Ingrid alone and she did not have to worry about sullying the reputation of her house, she thought she might have been sick.

And then, the feeling of nausea only heightened when the rest of the group swarmed her all at once.

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Dorothea demanded, her hands falling hard and trembling on Ingrid’s shoulders.

As soon as Ingrid managed to get out a response, her voice was drowned out by more exclamations, in varying tones of disbelief and—she realized this with a jolt—fury.

“I can’t _believe_ this!” Caspar raged. His hands were visibly shaking, but clearly not with fear or distress of any sort. “Did that just happen?! Did those guys _really_ just try to kidnap you?! What kind of place _is_ this?!”

“Fódlan,” Ingrid told him tiredly. At least one of them, it was clear, had not been raised on the same kind of stories as her. “This is Fódlan.”

Edelgard snorted. Her hand slipped from Ingrid’s elbow, fingertips lingering on Ingrid’s sleeves for one long, agonizing moment, before slipping away entirely. “What an accusation,” she muttered. “This happened because this is Fódlan.” Leaning a little closer towards Ingrid, eyes questioning: “And why must it be this way, just because this is Fódlan?”

Ingrid did not think anyone else had heard—well, not anyone besides Hubert, who was fixing them both in a razor-sharp gaze—and she was not sure how she could answer that. Not certain how she could say to Edelgard that she had heard the words echo in her mind, until they spoke to her in her own voice, and asked her: yes, why _is_ that the way things must be in Fódlan?

In the moment that those words took root in her mind, Ingrid thought she could feel something crack. She was not sure where it originated from. Somewhere inside of her, and she thought she could feel the cracks spreading.

She did not have time for that, right now. She would ignore it for as long as she could.

“I agree—this was a shocking display of Master Kneller’s greed.” Ferdinand did not seem to be fuming to Caspar’s extent, let alone _Edelgard’s_ , but neither did he seem at all pleased. “I still believe we should take this information to Lady Daphnel; we cannot allow this man to prey upon any other women.”

At that—‘other women’—Ingrid flinched once more, far more violently, and this time, there was no use in hoping that Edelgard would not notice. “ _Are_ you well?” Edelgard pressed in an undertone, that air of dignity failing her as her brow furrowed in undeniable concern.

Ingrid despised the fact that she could feel her face growing warm, even over the dry heat of Ailell all too close by. She nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak. Anything she said, _anything_ she said, would have been too much. Been too revealing.

(She told herself that she did not know what was going on in the back of her mind. She told herself she did not know what was lurking behind walls and walls of ivy, behind the brick walls she had made of every duty she owed to her family. She told herself that, often. How long could that go on?)

Bernadetta’s voice rose tremulously from beyond the distant roar of fire—“Oh, that was horrible; I never want to do something like that again”—and Petra could be heard muttering about how she had hoped to confront Kneller in person, but Ingrid did not focus on them, their voices drifting into the flames as faint echoes, only. Her attention was reserved for Professor Melusine, who had made her way to the front of the group and was staring at her intently.

“Are you injured?” she asked, in a tone that brooked absolutely no prevarication.

Ingrid shook her head.

The professor swept the rest of the group with a hard look. “Are any of you injured?”

There was a rolling murmuring of “no’s.” Apparently, the healers in the group had spent the amount of time Ingrid had been sitting to attend to the rest of the group.

To that, Professor Melusine nodded. She had always had a vaguely doll-like look to her face; even streaked with ash and soot, she retained that quality. Never before had her face looked in Ingrid’s eyes like the carven wood or sculpted porcelain of the dolls Ingrid had seen in her life. Now, she bore the sternness of the visage of Saint Cichol in the Saints’ Shrine in Garreg Mach’s cathedral, and just about as yielding. “We must not linger here. Before any other concerns may be addressed—“ and here, she nodded at Ferdinand “—we must deliver the information we have gathered to Count Galatea.”

Yes, her father must know of what had happened. (Ingrid had no idea how she was going to tell him.) The part of Ingrid that could remember being a small child found the idea of going home to her parents immensely comforting. The small child had never known a problem her parents, her father especially, could not solve. The part of Ingrid that stood in the present, an almost-adult, was regarding the reunion with considerably more trepidation—and ambivalence.

_How could he not have found this out himself?_

Ingrid hauled the saddlebags into her arms and held them close, a talisman against the uncertainty of the future.

_What if they’re not—_

Edelgard turned to her, and gestured to the diseased pine trees. “Lead the way.”

-

Another small mercy: they found the wagon only half a mile from where they had left it, and both of the horses unharmed. They took the saddlebags from the exhausted riding horses and pegasi and packed them into the wagon, the better to further lighten the load on their mounts. (Ingrid took the ledgers from her saddlebags and put them into her pack, which she then slung across her back. She did not care about the added weight. If something happened to the wagon, she would still have this. She would still have proof. They wouldn’t be able to say that she was lying, that she was impugning the name of a good man, they wouldn’t—)

The trip to the town surrounding the Galatea keep wound up taking the rest of the day, when traveling as the crow flew. By the time Ingrid saw lights on the horizon, the gloom that pervaded the moors really was that of twilight, a bruised black-purple that made her ache just looking at it.

The walk was a quiet one, with little conversation and none of the traveling songs that had made the rounds (and were typically sung at least slightly off-key, since neither Dorothea nor Ferdinand were familiar with them) while they had made their way towards Aidunn. They had left their pursuers to cook in the ovens of Ailell, but the tension that had followed them ever since they had realized that they were being pursued had yet to leave them behind. Maybe they would recover their cheer once they reached the town. Maybe they would have it back by the time they returned to Garreg Mach. Maybe.

Frost and snow clung to the gorse bushes they had to pick their way around, and snow glittered on the ground. Ingrid found herself looking for signs of wild animals, for the foxes or deer or hawks she’d seen on her first ride through this part of the country a few days ago, watching for frogs or mice or grouse, for any sign of life that did not come from dead or dying or sleeping plants. When she couldn’t, when it felt for all the world as though she and her friends and their horses and their pegasi were the only living things for miles around, she was struck with the most bizarre sense of loss. What she was supposed to be losing, she could not begin to guess.

But then, her emotions weren’t working as they ought to have today, in general. If they were, she would have been overwhelmed with relief since the moment they left Ailell behind. But she was not relieved. Of everything she felt, there was not so much as a spark of relief to be found anywhere inside.

Sometime maybe around noon, maybe later, Professor Melusine came to walk beside her, and pressed a pair of hardtack biscuits into her hand. Ingrid had not asked for food. She had not been hungry. (She could not remember when last she was hungry.) But everyone was eating now, and to waste food when they were subsisting on rations, even if they would have the opportunity for a more substantial meal once they reached the town in a few hours, would have been an unforgivable offense.

Ingrid was not hungry. She was not, and especially not when ensconced in her own home territory, someone so heedless as to waste food.

Hardtack was not known for its toothsome flavor. Food was food. Ingrid chewed, struggling to swallow when the combination of a dry mouth and drier food turned the hardtack to a thick, gummy mass in her mouth. She winced as she swallowed, and waited for the giddy relief food in her stomach had never failed to provide.

It never came.

And relief did not visit her when she saw those lights on the horizon, and the shadow of the castle looming up behind it. Indeed, when Ingrid realized how close she was to home, when she realized how close she was to having to give her father news that she was uncertain that he would readily accept, and that she _knew_ he would not like, her stomach began to churn. Despite the cold that had descended with a vengeance once they had no longer been in sight of Ailell, Ingrid began to sweat.

Mercifully, they had no trouble getting into the town. The gatekeeper recognized Ingrid immediately, even through all the soot and ash and blood, and once he had seen her, he let her party into the town without questions or even second thoughts.

It had been months since Ingrid had last seen the town that girded her childhood home. She had remembered it as small, but somehow, it was even smaller than she had remembered. She’d grown accustomed to the flourishing town that prospered in the shadow of Garreg Mach, and by comparison, this sparse place, with few houses and fewer houses that showed any signs of life, looked very poor indeed.

Ingrid tried to tell herself that it would all be better, one day. That if she was wed to a wealthy man, the money that that would bring to the territory would revitalize the town, would save her family and her homeland from falling to ruin. She tried to tell herself that, but the words would not come.

(She was ungrateful, she tried to tell herself. But those words would not come, either.)

Ingrid led them to the inn whose nightly sounds had been so clear from her bedchamber window. It, meanwhile, was just the same as she remembered it, a rude, rickety building on the outside, dark and cramped on the inside. But it was sheltered from the wind, it was warm and had food ready for weary travelers, and could serve as a base for them to pick up fresh supplies for the rest of the trip back to the monastery.

They were just beginning to settle down when the guard arrived.

Ingrid recognized the face of the man who had appeared at the door of the room they were all crammed into (The largest and nicest in the inn, but still rather smaller than what was entirely comfortable). It was Géraud, a young man who had been accepted into the ranks of the household guard just a few months before Ingrid left for Garreg Mach. Ingrid would be lying if she said that she knew him all that well. He had always seemed earnest; very earnest, point of fact. He practically tripped over himself to follow whatever orders were put to him, and his armor was always as highly-polished as any mirror in the keep.

His armor was very highly-polished that night, and it was too dark in the room for Ingrid to even begin to make out anything in the mirror of his breastplate.

Ingrid recognized Géraud before Géraud recognized Ingrid. He looked around the cramped room of people covered in soot and ash and liberally sprinkled with blood (it was occurring to Ingrid to wonder if they would even have been allowed into the inn had the daughter of the innkeeper’s liege lord not been among them), and his face screwed up in such a way as if he was not only wondering if he hadn’t knocked on the wrong door, but if he hadn’t somehow stumbled upon a den of bandits right in the middle of the inn.

Trepidation settling hard and hot in her throat, Ingrid stepped forward into the light, where Géraud could more easily see her. “Géraud?”

He started, eyes widening, before hastily sketching a bow. “Milady! Ah, forgive me, I did not recognize you.”

A self-conscious hand went to Ingrid’s filthy braid. “Please, don’t apologize. I suspect my own mother might have had some trouble recognizing me. Why—“ she straightened, praying that that would make her look more dignified than it would defensive “—are you here?”

Géraud cleared his throat, managing to look more like a skittish young stag than a guard in full armor. “Count Galatea—your father,” he added unnecessarily, “received a report that you were here. I have orders to escort you to the keep, at once.”

 _Already_? Ingrid felt the nausea that had assailed her this morning return in full force. She had known it was likely that her father would learn she was in the town before she was fully ready to go to him with what she had learned. She’d expected that, but she had _hardly_ expected that she would be called up before she had really even had the chance to catch her breath.

_The gatekeeper must have sent someone to the keep the moment he closed the gate behind us—or else made the run himself. On horseback, even._

Ingrid need only cast a cursory glance around the room to guess at its recalcitrant mood. Honestly, she need not do even that—she could feel that recalcitrance, herself. “Please wait a moment outside,” she told him, with all the lady’s courtesy that she could muster while she was soot-, ash-, and blood-stained, miserably tired, and felt like she was going to throw up.

But Géraud did not step outside. Instead, he took a step forward. “Milady—“ his tone was apologetic, but firm “—I have my orders. They came directly from your father.”

Out of the corner of Ingrid’s eye, she could see Edelgard stiffening. “I must confer with my companions,” she told him, more firmly. “Please wait outside.” Upon seeing his face fall, she added, “I will take responsibility for the delay.”

At last, Géraud exited the room, but he did not go far. Ingrid heard him take maybe three steps after he shut the door behind him, and then nothing. He was still nearby. He was still within earshot.

Ingrid hoped, _really_ hoped, that the rest of her party realized that as well. At this point, she was not certain what part of the conversation that was to ensue could put her in bad standing with her father if it was reported to him, but discretion would still serve them all better than not.

Ingrid stared at the shut door a moment longer, brow furrowed, before turning to face her companions.

Dorothea smiled at her, more tremulously than Ingrid thought she had ever seen appear on her face. “Your father is very prompt, isn’t he?”

Not trusting herself to smile, or frown, or try out any expression at all, Ingrid nodded. “I have never known him to be otherwise.”

No, she hadn’t, had she? Ingrid had always admired that about her father, the way he never wanted anyone’s time to be wasted, and now, now she began to wonder if there was not a disadvantage to that. He did not waste people’s time, and neither did he—

No, not now. She could not carry anger into the meeting. (No matter how it clung to her.) She could not carry anything into the meeting that would poison her words, or poison her father’s mind, or, worse yet, make her father discredit what she brought before him. She could not walk away from this meeting the betrothed of Niklaus Kneller. She could not bear it.

“I…” Dorothea was wringing her hands. “I don’t suppose we’ll be allowed to go with you to talk to your father?”

Regretfully, Ingrid shook her head. “If the order is for only myself, it will not put him in a good mood to be confronted by a crowd.” She’d never known a man who was pleased to be confronted by a crowd when he had expected only one; no doubt her father would prove no different. “It will have to be just me.”

Yes, just her. And she would have to find a way to explain all of this to her father, calmly and with the appropriate authority, without her friends at her back to provide support. She could only hope her father would be in a mood to take such awful news calmly. Could only hope that her father, upon seeing the prospect of his future being dashed to pieces on the ground, would not deem it beyond endurance, would not simply refuse to accept the truth for what it was.

Quickly, the ledgers were gathered up into an empty bag that Ingrid thought had been housing the party’s medical supplies—it _had_ been, Linhardt confirmed, and now those would be stored in one of the saddlebags instead. As soon as Ingrid returned, the medical supplies would be returned to their proper place.

Ah.

About that…

Ingrid sucked in a harsh, ragged breath, trying to steady herself. Another concession, something else that made her feel like she was trying to stand on water rather than solid ground. But she must do it. To misrepresent the situation to them would have been the height of discourtesy.

So she sucked in that breath, straightened her back, and told them all, “It may be best if you return to the monastery without me.”

Objections were expected, and in that expectation, Ingrid was not disappointed.

She did not bother trying to answer each individual objection. She would have been there all night, not least because many of them were spoken over top of each other and there were some objections Ingrid had been unable to make out at all. What, then, was the point?

Instead, Ingrid was hyper-aware of Edelgard staring at her in silence, features tight and gaze intent. Ingrid was only equal to the task of meeting that gaze for a moment, before she was forced to look away. Even once Ingrid had turned away, she could still feel Edelgard looking at her. Could still feel her eyes raking over her form. The gaze made her feel… It made her feel naked.

A woman who apparently had to deal with boisterous students on a regular basis, Professor Melusine swept them all with a long look that instantly shut them up. Even Hubert, who’d asked but one question, and in too low a tone for Ingrid to make it out, grimaced and straightened when his professor’s eyes fell upon him.

Then, Professor Melusine’s eyes fell upon Ingrid herself. “I do not think that wise,” she told Ingrid, in a tone that was not firm, because ‘firm’ was not what Ingrid would call steel.

“I may be with my father for some time,” Ingrid returned, folding her arms across her chest, “and we do not have much time left to return to the monastery.” Somewhere between two and a half and three days—Ingrid had lost track of a few of the hours. “My father would not send me across so long a distance without guards, especially not after what happened this morning. I will be safe. I would not see the rest of you in violation of the Archbishop’s edicts on my account.”

Yes, being in violation of the Archbishop’s edicts sounded like a very bad idea, indeed.

Professor Melusine’s slate blue, piercing eyes flitted over Ingrid’s face as she considered those words, her expression unreadable. At last, she let out a quiet sigh. “Are you certain this is what you wish?” she asked softly. “If we left tomorrow morning and rode hard for the monastery, we would still stand a good chance of reaching Garreg Mach before our window closes.”

Undeterred, Ingrid nodded.

And Professor Melusine nodded in turn, though the faint downward quirk of her mouth told Ingrid all that she needed to know regarding what she felt on the matter. “We will be here in the town for several hours yet,” she informed Ingrid. “It will take some time to get all of our affairs in order.”

 _And until we leave, you will be free to come down here and join us,_ went unsaid, but was clearly audible, anyways.

“I do not anticipate any trouble with my father,” Ingrid told them all, as she approached the door, ledgers in bag, bag on shoulder. Trying to feel as optimistic as her words suggested, she said, “My father will want me to stay the night, but I do not think I will have any great difficulty convincing him to terminate the marriage negotiations.”

“What if he won’t?” Edelgard asked quietly, the words tapping gently on Ingrid’s spine, like probing fingertips. “What will you do, if he refuses?”

Ingrid did not answer. She did not look back.

-

It had been rather longer than a ‘moment,’ but Géraud made no comment when Ingrid went out into the hall to meet him. Whether he was counting on her to take responsibility if a problem arose, or this was simple politeness, Ingrid could not guess. And it did not matter, either way.

As they descended the stairs and then headed up the high street towards the castle gates, Ingrid grew increasingly curious regarding something. When she thought about it, it seemed rather more likely that it would have been Séverin or Marcel looking for her in the inn. Ingrid had never known either of her parents to send a guard to fetch her when either of her older brothers were available. Similarly, why send a guard to fetch Marcel or Séverin if Ingrid was around? It was not their way.

Géraud provided an answer readily enough. Séverin was in Fhirdiad on business, and was not expected back until the end of the month, provided the weather did not render the roads impassable before then. Marcel was in the territory of Count Rowe, trying to catch as many of the last tourneys of the season as he could before the snows came in earnest and put a moratorium on tourneys until spring. Whether or not he would come home bearing prize money was anyone’s guess. Mother was away as well, nursing one of her natal relatives through illness in the west of the Kingdom.

So, it would only be Ingrid and her father in the castle tonight. Ingrid was not sure whether that comforted her or not. On the one hand, Ingrid would not have to explain what had happened to her mother or her brothers. On the other hand, they would not be here when she must live through all of it again.

It was what it was. One way or another, it would be over, soon.

(No, it wouldn’t.)

The outer gates of the castle opened with a hoarse clatter. The smell of old, faintly rancid water, muted by the cold, greeted Ingrid’s nose as the drawbridge was lowered over the moat and the inner gate was wheeled open. What a familiar smell. Ingrid could almost find it comforting—in the summer, the smell was so overpoweringly unpleasant that Ingrid would not have lingered here for love or money, but in the winter, it was just something that reminded her of home.

There were few lanterns lit, and few guards on duty in the green in the dead of night. Snow glimmered dully in the cloud-choked night, almost dingy to Ingrid’s eyes, though she could see no sign of footprints in the snow that blanketed the dead grass; all kept to the paths in the winter, be they not children, and be they those who had better things to do with their time than building snowmen or engaging in snowball fights.

Ingrid remembered those snowball fights. She remembered a time when Glenn hadn’t thought himself too old to join in, if only vaguely—but all of her memories of Glenn were growing vague, were they not? This was the first time she had really stopped to think about it, but she could no longer remember the quality of his voice. Ingrid felt a pang as she continued up the path towards the keep. He had laughed long and hard just feet away from where she stood, but she could no longer remember what his laugh had sounded like. It was easier to imagine him dead than living.

_Bury him, then._

Ingrid shook it off, and kept walking.

The entrance hall was but dimly lit—a few torches burning in sconces at the wall, and nothing more. The tapestries hung up between them were lost to shadow, the stories of their images foundering in a sea of night. Only the gleam of eyes, the shadow of a sword blade, the suggestion of an accusatory hand leered out from the woven threads. Besides Ingrid and Géraud, the entrance hall was deserted. None of the servants were present, and there was no sign of Ingrid’s father. Ingrid peered into the shadows, hoping for some sign, but nothing.

“Count Galatea awaits you in his solar,” Géraud told her, anticipating her question.

A private location. Less people to see her in such a state. Less people to hear what Ingrid had come to say. Less people to bear witness to House Galatea’s shame at having let a wolf in through the front door.

It should have been comforting. Ingrid knew how little her father would have loved learning the truth in front of witnesses who might have been inclined to carry gossip away from the keep.

He was not here.

She could not change it. There was no use in dwelling upon it.

No longer needing Géraud to guide her (not that she had needed him to guide her in the first place, but out in public, there were certain appearances that must be maintained), Ingrid led the way up to the solar. She found herself shifting the strap of her bag as she traversed the distance between the entrance hall and her destination. It was not that the ledgers were so terribly heavy as all that—she had borne greater weights than this, in her time—but they took on a strange, special weight. Every fiber of her mind gravitated towards the ledgers, so that they took on a gravity all their own. They bore an intangible weight that they should not have possessed, and Ingrid could not guess at…

She could not say…

Just get through this. She just needed to see this through.

Géraud stopped outside of the shut door to the solar. Ingrid nodded distractedly. Her hand was sweaty as she pressed it to the wood of the door, tentatively pushing the door open. _Breathe, breathe_. She would not be able to explain anything at all if she was too overcome even to speak. _Just breathe_. Ingrid tried to still the rattling in her mind, tried to quiet the scream rising in her throat. Maybe her father would be convinced by her anxiety that there was more to the situation than a child’s fantasies, but he would not know the truth about Niklaus Kneller unless he told her.

_I don’t want to watch all of his hopes die._

Her father was standing with his back to her when she stepped inside of the solar, facing the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. He was… Ingrid felt her lip wobble, the scream trapped in her throat turning to a sob. No, she could not cry. She could explain nothing if her voice was choked with salty tears.

She could not see her father’s face, but he seemed just as she remembered. He stood just as straight, and he linked his arms behind his back as he had ever since Ingrid was a small child, ever since her memories emerged from the mists of infancy. His surcoat was the same deep green wool Ingrid could remember seeing out of the corner of her eye a hundred times. She even recalled the source of the scuff mark on the back of his right boot—when she was nine, they were riding to Charon territory in the spring, and the carriage became bogged down in mud, necessitating that Ingrid’s father get out alongside the driver to try and free it from its prison.

_He will listen. Once I tell him, he will not delay to cease any talk of marriage. Everything will be alright._

Those words ringing optimistically into every recess of her mind, Ingrid stepped forward into the solar, and cleared her throat.

Just as with Géraud, Ingrid’s father did not seem to recognize her at first. He stared down this filthy, bloodied stranger who had somehow made their way into his solar, his lined, bearded—was there maybe a little more gray in his beard than there had been when they last laid eyes on one another?—face hardening as he prepared either to confront or to call for the guards. But then, and Ingrid could not guess what it was, maybe she had stepped into the light, or perhaps he had seen some identifying mark beneath all the ash and soot, or perhaps it was her eyes, just her eyes, that gave her away, recognition reached him.

Father’s feet carried him swiftly across the rough and splintered floor— _“Ingrid?!_ What on—“—and Ingrid had to move quickly to silence him, holding up a hand and dropping her bag on the nearest table.

“There is something we need to discuss,” she tried to tell him. Tried.

Father, for his part, was still staring at her in mingled disbelief and dawning alarm. “Ingrid, where on earth have you been to—“

Ingrid did not have a word for how unnatural it felt to interrupt her father, but here she was, doing it for the second time tonight. She could not hesitate. If she hesitated, if she lost momentum, she might lose her courage as well, and not find it in her to explain any of this to him. The truth would hurt their family’s prospects. Letting the truth sit unexposed could instead deal a fatal blow to their family’s prospects.

“I’ll explain that later,” she assured him. Pressing her hand flat down on the bag, she went on, in a low, urgent tone, “We _must_ speak of this first. _Please,_ Father.”

Ingrid’s skin prickled, her blood pulsing unevenly in her veins as her father stared at her in continued disbelief. She thought he might balk; it was difficult to steer him from a course he was on once he had started on it in earnest, and she thought he might insist on hearing nothing else from her until she explained her appearance. But after a moment, albeit with obvious reluctance, he nodded. “Alright, child. Speak quickly, then.”

Speak quickly. Ingrid could almost laugh. Aye, she would speak quickly. What connection they had with Niklaus Kneller must needs be terminated as quickly as possible. Speaking quickly was perfectly consistent with Ingrid’s own desires.

It was natural to start at the beginning, the better to provide full context, and thus, Ingrid did so. She started at the beginning, with the omission of details that were not necessary to the telling of the tale—her father need never know what she had felt about any of this, and so much the better; she would not have known where to begin.

It was natural to start at the beginning, and Ingrid heeded her father’s words and spoke quickly, but even that felt like swallowing glass. Her stomach panged with the sharp, piercing pain of phantom glass; her throat seared; her mouth ached. With every word that passed her lips, she hammered another nail into the coffin that was to house her family’s hopes. The chances of their receiving another offer like Kneller’s, and from a man with something that actually passed for scruples, were astronomical; most likely, those few whose status was appropriate for a count’s daughter who would actually be willing to pay a bride price would pay a much smaller sum, either from lack of funds or from the impulse to sneer at any nobleman who would demand that they _pay_ him to wed their daughter (Though Ingrid had no doubt outsiders had seen the signs of poverty in House Galatea, it was hardly as though they _advertised_ their financial status to the outside world). Most likely, they would never receive such an offer again.

And as Ingrid was thinking of that, she found herself wondering, with increasing urgency, why she was thinking of this at all, at the moment. After everything she had gone through just that day, why turn her thoughts to marriage again? Why should she think of this, when she could not even bring herself to say that, one day, the territory and her family’s prospects would both be revitalized by her own prosperous marriage?

Those thoughts, when ignited within her mind, just served to migrate the feeling of broken glass into her mind and her heart. They were not helping her. Ingrid tried to put them away. (Tried.)

When Ingrid reached the stage of the story where Dorothea detailed just what it was Kneller had done, the predictable happened. She had expected it—it _was_ predictable, after all—and it would have been unreasonable _not_ to expect, knowing what she did concerning her father. Thinking about this rationally, it would have worried Ingrid more had he _not_ reacted as she had predicted. Had he not reacted as she expected from him, she might have worried he was sunk too deep in despair even to rail against it.

Thinking rationally, this was to be expected. Welcomed, even.

Where rational thought had fled to within the recesses of Ingrid’s mind, she could not begin to guess.

Father did the predictable, and shook his head. “Ingrid, you cannot simply make such accusations against respected men. It would—“

“That is why I brought evidence.”

The lack of faith… She knew where it stemmed from, or so she told herself. She could appreciate it; she took care to tell herself _that_. It was a blessing to have a father who was not so credulous as to believe every bit of information that passed his ears; House Galatea would have been run into the ground long ago, if bedeviled by a head that acted on every last bit of stray gossip to come to his attention. It was a blessing to have such a man as her father.

_Why did you not investigate him more closely?_

Still, it stung. It stung like the sting of an angry wasp after someone took a hammer to its nest. The venom of the sting needled her flesh, throbbing with every stray movement, lingering, lingering, digging its way deeper down.

It stung, and should not have, since she _knew_ him. Ingrid knew her father, and good thing, too. Had she not known him, she might have thought it sufficient to read the ledgers, and left them behind in Aidunn, where they could do her absolutely no good.

It should not have stung, and yet she could feel the venom of the sting still needling her flesh, sending pinpricks of pain up and down her chest.

_Enough. Sulking will not convince him of what you have learned._

Ingrid took the top ledger in the bag and turned it open to the inside cover and the first page. It was not either of the two ledgers she had originally carried in her own saddlebags. Maybe he would be convinced with just this. Maybe he would not have to stare down at extraordinarily blatant _proof_ , would not have to feel the bottom dropping out of the world as Ingrid had when she saw it for herself. She would like to spare him that, if she could. She could not begin to imagine what would be going through his mind once he saw truly what sort of man Niklaus Kneller was. She would spare him the worst of it, if she could.

“Here, he has signed his name as proof of ownership of this ledger,” Ingrid told her father, pointing out the signature on the first page. “Does this resemble his handwriting, as you have seen it?”

She watched her father’s brow furrow dubiously as he drank in the sight of Niklaus Kneller’s handwriting all over the first page. “It does. Ingrid, where did you _get_ —“

“Let me show you what we found,” Ingrid cut in hastily. She could only pray that he would not pick up that thread of thought again; oh, how she did _not_ want to explain how she had gotten her hands on the ledgers in the first place. Her stomach churned with shame at the idea of having to tell him how she had dirtied her hands in the interest of preserving their future.

This had been one of the ledgers Hubert looked through. Ingrid could tell from the plain, dark, wooden bookmark set in the ledger to mark the page with the relevant entries; he’d had a whole pile of them out on the table as he looked through his portion of the ledgers (Ingrid had borrowed a few for her own use). That made it easier to find the right page than it would have been had she pulled out the ledger, say, Bernadetta had found a suspicious entry in. Small mercies, she supposed.

Ingrid pointed the entry out to him, and let him read it without commentary. Let him drink in the information the way she and her friends had drunk it in; it seemed the best way to convince him of the truth of things.

Doubt flared in his eyes as he read; he was not an unintelligent man, Ingrid’s father, and she knew him to be perfectly capable of drawing a line between what she had told him of Kneller’s activities, and the entries he was reading here in this ledger.

Doubt had been born, but it was not yet ascendant. However fragile hope may have been, it was stubborn, too, and not so easily uprooted as all that. Ingrid watched as doubt was beat back from the forefront of her father’s mind, and he drew himself up, a deep frown creasing his mouth. “With what you have told me in mind, this does raise certain concerns. However, I see nothing concerning in it once your friend’s tales are taken out of context. It could mean anything.” He gestured at the page, a sharp, dismissive wave of the hand. “It does not necessarily have to mean anything untoward.”

A hot scream rattled in Ingrid’s throat, scratching and burning and tearing. _Why is my word not enough?_ He had doubts. She knew he did; he admitted as much himself. He had doubts, and yet he would not act on them? He had been so quick to accept Niklaus Kneller as a potential son-in-law. When the promise had been of a financial windfall signaling future prosperity, he had been quick to seize upon it. Now, _now_ , he was willing to preach caution? Now, he was unwilling to move too quickly, without making the proper inquiries?

Her future loomed before her. Ingrid’s father would refuse to accept any evidence of Kneller’s wrongdoings, and would refuse to terminate the marriage negotiations. He might not be able, by law, to force Ingrid to wed this man against her will, but he could coax and wheedle, he could press and insist, he could pile pressure on and on until Ingrid’s resolve was worn down. She was not certain she would have to fortitude to keep on refusing in the face of that. A true knight would not have consented to marrying someone they knew to be a hardened reprobate, and a true lady would not have tolerated making herself into the instrument of her family’s destruction, but Ingrid was neither. No true knight, and no true lady. She could not say what she would do, in the face of assurances that her stubbornness would prove the ruin of her family.

So what if she was not strong enough to weather her parents’ disappointment? What if she found herself swearing vows of loyalty and faithfulness and obedience to Niklaus Kneller, in spite of all that she had learned about him? In spite of the fact that he would sooner have abducted her, and likely never even paid House Galatea for the pleasure of its ruination through its connection to him?

The man wanted her for her Crest. Ingrid was not willing to countenance any other reason for his being willing to approach her father in the first place. Bar one, that was all any of them had ever wanted: her Crest, for their bloodline. He would want children, and as many as possible, for in these days of thinning blood, it was not at all uncommon for the first child with a Crest to be the third, fourth, or fifth child, overall.

Kneller would want children from her.

Could she tolerate that, submitting to the will of such a man? Could she tolerate him spilling his seed in her unmoved, unloving body, the better that her womb might quicken with his children? Oh, what she would _tolerate_ mattered not one whit, and she knew it. A man was entitled to heirs from his wife’s body. If Ingrid married Niklaus Kneller, she would give him heirs, whether or not the idea of it was something she could tolerate.

She would fall pregnant over and over again, until she had borne enough Crest-bearing children to satisfy a man utterly unworthy of them, or she was incapable due to age or infirmity of bearing any more, or until she was bleeding to death in the birthing bed, or she was burning away from unquenchable fever in the weakness that stalked women the world over after childbirth. That would be her life, for years and year on end: impregnated, pregnant, recovering from childbirth, then pressed down on her back in the marriage bed as many times as it took to impregnate her once more. Ingrid had already known that with marriage must almost certainly end any dreams over ever becoming a knight. But now, it seemed all hopes of happiness would be consumed by hateful duty, by the fear of what would become of her family when her husband’s crimes were inevitably exposed, and her husband’s own rapacious greed.

Ingrid had never imagined herself as a mother, you know? Not even once. She knew what would have been expected of her as a married, fertile, Crest-bearing noblewoman, but it had never even occurred to her to think about any future children of hers, nor what sort of mother she would be to them.

She thought she would begrudge Kneller every last child he was able to wring from her unmoved and unloving flesh. She thought she might not be able to see those children as anything but an extension of her husband’s hold over her. That was unfair to them. What would have been even more unfair was the way they would be caught up in their father’s inevitable fall from grace, bearing an even heavier burden from it than would House Galatea.

The marriage would spell ruin for them all. Ingrid could see their disgrace in stark detail, though the image fractured into several different scenarios, all of which she had no doubt would be plaguing her dreams for some time to come. If she could see it all so clearly, she had no doubt that her father could at least discern the edges of it all. If a lord wished to avoid the downfall of his house, he ought to avoid even the faintest whiff of any situation that could lead to such a comprehensive disgrace. Their reputation must be _spotless_ ; no scandal can be allowed to taint them, if their situation is in any other way precarious.

Her father was not insensible to what the scandal would do to House Galatea, what it would mean for his own future, and that of his dependents. How could he still hesitate, when the shape of the future must even now be unfolding in his mind?

_How can he still be hesitating, when he must realize my aversion to the marriage?_

Now, they must come to the heart of it all. If a gentle knock at the door of truth was insufficient to fling that door open, they must pound upon the wood—or else have the door off by its hinges.

Ingrid drew a long, silent breath, and took up the ledgers she had carried with her all the way from Aidunn.

“Look at this, then.”

As he read over the most blatant of the offending entries, Ingrid watched the quality of her father’s expression slowly alter. The first time he read over the entries, he still appeared dubious, with only a faint crack in his skepticism. But something prompted him to read over the entries again. Ingrid could not have guessed what that ‘something’ was—perhaps he merely wished to check the spelling of a certain word. Whatever it was, Ingrid would forever wonder if it had been that simple impulse that had made all the difference.

Ingrid watched as her father paled, his eyes widening as he read the entries over a second time. Soon, he was not reading at all, just gazing at the page without apparently seeing anything at all, eyes bright with the rising fire of panic. All Ingrid must do was look at him to see that he was at last putting the pieces together in his mind, _all_ of the pieces—the offer, the willingness to wed Ingrid without even having laid eyes on her ( _Father must have shown him a miniature, for any of those men to be able to pick me out from the rest in Ailell_ ), the offer of a fantastically generous bride price ( _was_ that _what made you look the other way?_ ), Kneller’s meteoric rise to wealth in the Empire, and perhaps even the fast favor Kneller had found in the Regent’s court in Fhirdiad. It all made sense once you looked at the man from a certain angle, once the shadows revealed what he was willing to do to attain power and keep it, and Ingrid…

Eventually, Ingrid had to look away.

She would have spared him this, if she could. Had her father simply been willing to take her at her word, had he been willing to terminate the marriage negotiations simply on the grounds that she found this latest suitor distasteful, she would not have showed him this. His own stubbornness had necessitated the measures Ingrid had taken.

She could tell herself that all she liked, and it would not stop her from feeling this way. Ingrid watched the light of hope die out of her father’s eyes, the place where the light of the spark had been now dark and empty, and she felt pain gnawing in the pit of her stomach. She had down what needed to be done to preserve their family’s standing. To the pang that had lanced her heart, making every beat an aching burden, that was little consolation.

She had come to kill his hope, and had nothing she could offer up in its place. Though the task had been bloodless, Ingrid still thought she could smell copper in the air.

(And yet, she still could not find it within her to envision the day when an offer as generous as the one Kneller had made might come again. Her imagination failed her, in this regard.)

At last, Father let out a long, hot breath. “I must send word come the morning,” he muttered. “Once I have called off the negotiations, I will dispatch a messenger to the royal court. No doubt news of the negotiations has already spread; if we are the ones to expose him, we may yet avoid the stain of having associated with him at all.”

All at once, the fears that had stung, burned, screamed inside Ingrid flickered out of existence, leaving her with the giddy buoyancy of relief. He had been convinced. He believed her. ( _After you showed him undeniable proof, and not before_.) No longer did the threat of becoming Niklaus Kneller’s wife dangle over her neck like an axe wielded by an unsteady and inexperienced executioner. Ingrid had not even known the cold kiss of the blade for what it was until he was abruptly taken away from her skin, but without it, she felt pounds lighter. An unsteady little laugh reverberated in her mouth, the match to her shaking hands. She felt a little as though she might just lift off of the ground.

(And now, she knew that every time she learned of a new suitor her father had found for her, she would wonder anew what she was to find if she swept back the curtain concealing his past.)

“Very well,” Ingrid said, unable to keep relief from shivering her voice. “I can help you draft the letter, if you wish, but I must return to Garreg Mach come the morning.”

“No,” Father replied distractedly. “That should not be necessary. I have everything I need to open a formal inquiry.”

His gaze drifted to Ingrid’s face, but there was none of the gratitude that one might have expected. There was some small consolation to be found in that Ingrid could discern no blame lurking in her father’s eyes, but when Ingrid registered the way he was looking her up and down, eyes lingering on every spot of soot or fleck of ash or smear of blood, any sensation of consolation evaporated.

She had forgotten how much of Ailell she had taken away from the valley with her.

“Ingrid,” he said slowly, “you still have not told me how you came to look as though you have walked through a bonfire.” His jaw tightened. “I would hear an explanation.”

Ingrid swallowed hard. “Yes.” She tried to breathe deep, and could only manage the shallowest gasp. “I imagine you would.”

Why this should be even more difficult to explain than what she had learned of how Niklaus Kneller had made his wealth, Ingrid had no idea. In scope, what she had gone through this morning was nothing compared to what all the people who had been enslaved after the close of the war between the Empire and Brigid and Dagda—the people who might yet be enslaved—had gone through. Compared to them, she had nothing to complain about, nothing at all—especially considering that she had _escaped._

The certainty that she had naught to complain about was something born in her mind, something that refused to migrate all the way down into the rest of her body. Ingrid’s palms grew slick with sweat as she related to her father the tale of their flight from Aidunn, and the events that had led them to seek refuge in—and do battle in—wrathful, fiery Ailell. Her palms were slick with sweat, but her mouth was dry as the cracked stones that had groaned and shifted and spewed steam and smoke and reeking gas if you put your foot wrong, or sometimes even if you didn’t. Her arms and legs jittered with tension and unspent energy, screaming with the sudden need for activity despite the fact that she should be all rights be exhausted. Her heart beat a hammering tattoo against her ribs, threatening to burst with each pulse of blood that danced erratically beneath her skin.

In spite of the turmoil raging within her body, Ingrid found her voice flat and dull as she went on. Whatever went on in her body was doomed to stay there. It could not seem to find its way out.

What little color was left in her father’s face drained from it as Ingrid came at last to the point where the men who had pursued them from Aidunn had attempted to abduct her. “You must be examined at once,” he told her urgently. “Come with me now, Ingrid.”

Ingrid frowned, confused, as her father stood from his chair and set his hand on her shoulder, urging her up. The words were slow to register; they were not what she had been expecting. “Father, I… am not hurt.”

But he did not seem to hear; his hand migrated from Ingrid’s shoulder to her elbow. “Come with me now, Ingrid,” he repeated, the thrum of urgency harmonizing found in his voice with all the sick tension in Ingrid’s body, reigniting the feeling of nausea that had lied dormant in her belly. “You must be examined at once. There must be no question of…”

Of ‘what,’ exactly, he would not say, but where he took Ingrid, hand planted on her elbow the whole time as though he feared she might run away, did not fill her with what she considered _optimism._

In the dark, it looked the same as any other bedchamber in the keep—Ingrid could make out a bed, a table with two chairs, and an unlit hearth, even before her father lit the torches and lit the bedside lamp—but she knew better than to assume it was such. She knew this room. It was her mother’s birthing chamber, left unused these past seven years.

Ingrid would be lying to say that she was particularly comfortable at having been brought to the chamber where her mother had almost died on several occasions, but her father did not notice, or else, did not care. “Wait here,” he commanded, and left, shutting the door behind him.

Some strange impulse to test the lock arose in Ingrid’s mind. Uneasy and unsteady, she pushed it down. Why she would feel the impulse in the first place, she could not say. Did not care to contemplate.

She stood alone in the room where she had been born, listening to the pop and crackle of torches, wincing as a stray draught from the hearth caught her with its cold breath. She scrubbed absently at a patch of soot on her right sleeve, but no amount of scrubbing would remove these stains.

The clothes were, in all likelihood, ruined.

That should not have been a concern.

Several minutes later, Ingrid heard rapid footsteps and the strains of conversation, as muffled by a heavy, oaken door. One of them was definitely her father, but the other, she could not guess at, only to say that it was most likely a woman. She swallowed, a tremor settling deep into her shoulders. What was going on?

When the door swung open once more, there was her father, and there was the castle physician, Mistress Clothilde. Mistress Clothilde’s graying eyebrows rose as she took in the state of Ingrid’s clothes, hair, and honestly, just her general appearance, but her attention was not on Ingrid for very long.

“You do realize that it will be at best difficult to obtain positive verification, do you not?” she inquired, fixing her liege lord in a skeptical stare. “Lady Ingrid had always been fond of horseback riding; that alone could be enough. And when we consider the rigors of combat training—“

Father’s face flushed dark red at around the same time that Ingrid thought she could feel the bottom drop out of the world. “I am aware of that.” His eyes darted to Ingrid’s face, but as much as she wished she could make out some sign of second thoughts in his eyes, or, failing that, an _apology_ , he seemed neither apologetic, nor irresolute. “Just…”

He exited the room, shutting the door behind him with enough force almost to qualify as a slam.

Mistress Clothilde clicked her tongue, shaking her head with all the exasperation of someone who, judging by the disheveled state of her hair and clothes, had clearly been dragged out of bed to be here. “Such a squeamish man,” she muttered.

With an attitude like _that_ , Ingrid could only hope that she would conduct the most cursory of examinations. Or that she would simply refuse outright to perform an examination at all.

Hope sang so sweetly when it wanted something from you, but that made its poison all the more potent when the betrayal came.

“Alright,” Mistress Clothilde told her, crisp and business-like, as though her next request would be something so casual, so gladly done. “Take off your boots, your trousers, and your smallclothes, and sit on the edge of the bed.”

She should have known this was coming from the moment Mistress Clothilde started going on about horseback riding. She should have known this was coming. Should have known.

She should have known this was coming, and yet, now that the moment had arrived, it had struck her dumb, like lightning out of the sky on a cloudless day.

Ingrid stood there, silent, frankly unable to speak, while Mistress Clothilde also stood there, patiently, holding a bag that she had taken from the folds of her crumpled robes.

“I do not care to rush you, Lady Ingrid, but the night will not last forever, and your father will be wanting results long before dawn.”

Or not so patiently, perhaps.

Her father. That was what it came down to, was it not? Her father would not allow her to take one step out of this room without some proof that she had not been interfered with by men who had wished her harm. Really, he _could not_ ; few men looking for a young bride either expected or _wanted_ a bride who had been soiled. He must, then, have some sort of proof.

It was easy to tell herself that. It was much more difficult for Ingrid to undo the bindings on her boots.

_Why is my word not enough?_

Ingrid knew what anyone would say to that: her word was not enough on account of all the girls who had ever lied about their virginity, not enough on account of all the women who had ever lied about the paternity of their children, not enough because if they could lie, then so could she. All Ingrid could give in response was the protest that she was not wont to lie about such things, that she had not been interfered with, that she was a maiden still, and that there was no need for _this_. But those words would fall on deaf ears, on account of all the girls who had ever lied.

All those other girls had been lying, they would say. Ingrid could be lying, too. And if she kept on professing the truth of her words, well, plenty of liars had as well.

The world desired proof more compelling than the word of Ingrid Brandl Galatea.

Her hands began to shake as she finally got her boots off. They were trembling when they went to her belt. By the time Ingrid was left to yank down her smallclothes and step free of a puddle of cloth, the trembling had spread to the rest of her body, leaving her not so much a girl as a pile of goo fashioned to resemble a girl, or so it felt to her. She did not feel like a human ought—she felt like something less than that. Something that could not stand up to accusations or doubt and maintain its own truth, but only bow to the wishes of its accusers and doubters and subject itself to the unnecessary and uninvited.

Her skin did not fit like it was supposed to. Ingrid gingerly lowered herself onto the bed, and the coverlet felt strange against bare, prickling skin. It was furry, but hard and unforgiving to the touch. In spite of the cold that ruled outside and pervaded within, the air felt hot and stale and close. Nothing felt like it ought. Ingrid clamped down on another giddy laugh, clamped down on a wobbly scream.

_I don’t want—_

It wasn’t about what she wanted. Nothing that truly mattered ever was.

“Lie on your back.” Mistress Clothilde seemed entirely too peaceable—but then, she was not the one sitting half-naked on a bed, trying and failing to steel herself to submit to something that every instinct rebelled against. “Don’t move up on the bed. Just lie down, hold your legs apart, and hold still.”

That sounded entirely too much like what any prospective husband might say to Ingrid on their wedding night. The thought made the screams caged up in her mouth just a little louder. She dared not speak, either to give assent or to protest. The screams would have gotten out, that way. Instead, Ingrid did as she was told in silence.

All-important was the need to not focus on what was happening to her right now. It would be easier to bear if Ingrid’s thoughts were elsewhere, if she could simply be somewhere else in mind, if she could be somewhere that did not involve being present _here_. She had to let her mind drift, had to let her awareness bleed out of her body, had to—

Ingrid jolted, biting down so hard against her lower lip that beads of blood bloomed on her teeth. She had to be somewhere else in mind, but Mistress Clothilde’s ungentle hands were far too _cold_ for her to be anywhere but here.

“A woman’s maidenhead is very delicate,” Mistress Clothilde was saying conversationally, as if totally insensible to the effect that all of this was having on Ingrid. Perhaps she was; Ingrid had never known the castle physician very well, being someone who rarely needed her services, and for all she knew, she could very well have been this oblivious. “Any level of strenuous activity can break it, without sexual intercourse ever needing to enter into it. Horseback and pegasus riding is especially notorious for claiming the maidenhead before the lady’s husband can have the pleasure; I don’t think it at all instructive to check yours. Besides…” She turned to the dark window, mouth creasing in a thin, rueful almost-smile. “I’ve not the time for that.”

No consolation, that. No consolation at all. The only thing Ingrid would have taken as consolation would have been Mistress Clothilde throwing up her clammy hands and declaring the examination over with just this. Without that, she could not—

Ingrid squirmed as her family’s physician resumed her examination, fingers prodding incessantly as Ingrid fought every impulse within her that screamed at her to jerk away from the probing hand, to kick and scream and dive for her clothes and flee the room. This was necessary, it was necessary, she needed to sit still and let Mistress Clothilde go about her work, and she needed to _breathe_ —

A whimper escaped Ingrid’s gritted teeth. She could not help it. She would have stopped it if she could, but that was beyond her power. So many things were beyond her power. Her hands fisted in the coverlet (it felt as it should under her hands, as it had not when first she sat upon it), knuckles white as her fingers dug deep into the furs. Her gorge was rising higher and higher in her throat, and oh, wouldn’t it be a memorable ending to the examination if she reeled back and vomited before Mistress Clothilde could come to any solid conclusions, if the venerable physician could not get out of the way in time?

A memorable image, and a shameful one.

No less shameful than this.

Edelgard might well have undergone a similar examination, when she was recovered from her uncle-kidnapper’s custody. The question of an Imperial princess’s virginity was a far more pressing one than that of a count’s daughter. Ingrid could not imagine Edelgard enduring such a thing without anything less than dignified, if irritated, composure, but then, Edelgard would not have been a mature young woman when she underwent the examination. She would have been yet a child, a child with quite possibly no idea why she was being examined in such a way. It was easy, then, to imagine that Edelgard’s skin would have crawled with shame as Ingrid’s did now, but really, Ingrid thought it more likely that she would have responded with bewildered fear, were she made to submit to a physician’s poking and prodding.

Fear… Aye, Ingrid could understand fear. She knew where she was. She knew what was happening. And this bore just enough resemblance to what went on in a marriage bed that she thought it would feature in her nightmares tonight, regardless. (She supposed she could pray to the Goddess for dreamless sleep. It was such a small thing to ask for; perhaps it would be granted. Perhaps.)

Why her thoughts had drifted to Edelgard, Ingrid had no idea. That was a question best reserved for another day. Or never.

‘Never’ sounded about right.

Ingrid did not at first register when Mistress Clothilde finally took her hands away from between her legs. She lied on her back on the bed, gazing blankly up at the canopy without ever seeing it at all. Her skin prickled and writhed as if assaulted with needles. Cold sweat rolled down her neck in thick beads, wetting her shirt and providing no relief whatsoever to the paradoxical heat blazing in the room.

From far away, she heard: “Well, that’s that. You’d best get dressed, while I speak to your father.”

Judging by the difficulty Ingrid had in hauling herself to her feet, muscles stiff and legs weak, it seemed exhaustion had finally found her.

She felt… strange. Mistress Clothilde had done no more than poke and prod, but she still felt this way, strange and sick and over-stimulated, and it was both relief and torture to have her smallclothes and her trousers back on over her writhing skin.

Ingrid’s eyes swam, but she blinked hard, over and over again, until they were dry once more.

As she was pulling her boots back on, the door flew open once again. There was her father, there was the relief in his face that she had been waiting for all this time, and here was the question rising up as a scream in her throat: _Why was my word not enough?_

In another world, she supposed she might have actually asked that question. Perhaps the future would have been written in a different hand had she done so, and come to a different end. But Ingrid knew her duty, and even had she not, exhaustion had settled over her like a coat of lead, sapping her of any ability or inclination towards argument. That other future would never come to fruition.

Before Ingrid knew it, her father had closed the distance between them and enveloped her in his arms. “Thank the Goddess,” he breathed, a choked laugh escaping his lips. “That’s that, then.”

Ingrid said nothing. She stood limp in his arms, never responding to his embrace. She could have wrapped her arms around his back, could have rested her head on his shoulder, could have done any number of things, and could not find it in herself to do any of them.

She searched for comfort, and found none. She could feel the cold once more, and found no warmth here.

-

It was on leaden feet that Ingrid dragged herself back to her bedchamber. She had departed her father’s company without a word, and her father had made no move to stop her, beyond the odd, momentary resistance to her attempt to slip out from the confine of his arms. She passed guards doing their nightly rounds on the way there, and said naught to them. She did not meet their eyes. Her bed. She wanted to reach her bed. That was all she wanted.

Her room, she found dark and cold. Ingrid could not find it in her to be surprised. They only heated the parts of the castle that were currently in use; anything else would have been a frivolous expense, even in the name of maintaining appearances. That no one had come to light them when news must have spread of her return, leaving only a cloudy sliver of sickly moonlight to barely illuminate the room…

Where surprise had gone, Ingrid could not say. She could not grasp it. She could not summon it from the deeps. It was beyond her, now.

She stood there in the doorway, legs wobbly, stomach churning, taking deep breaths through her nose that, had anyone else been here to hear them, they would have called ‘sniffles.’ That was what they would have called them, but Ingrid was past the point of having the name at hand. She was past the point of noticing any such change in her breathing. She—

A wave of heat rushed over her in a torrent, and she surged forward to the empty pot at the foot of her bed, hacking and spluttering as her stomach and throat convulsed and bile stained her teeth and coated the interior of the pot a foul, fetid yellow.

She had only thought herself exhausted before. Crouched low over the pot, coughing and gagging, dripping sweat onto the cold floor, Ingrid felt the way a wet rag must when it was wrung out over and over for every drop of water it could yield. Every mile she had traveled without sleep or any semblance of rest crashed down on her at once, but though every fiber of her body rebelled against continued activity, her mind was yet wide awake. Plumbing through thick fog, but awake.

_I want—_

She was not sure what she wanted. The shapes of her desires looked up out of the fog, dark and towering and terrifyingly indistinct. When revealed, it seemed as though they must break the world. It seemed that way, when viewed through the eyes of someone who had so few reasons to want anything. Why should she bother wanting, when what she wanted had never truly mattered?

She wanted, still.

Ingrid would not name her wants, tonight. She was fearful their names had changed, and that to acquaint herself with them tonight would have proven beyond her.

 _It does not matter what I want_.

She wanted, still. That was the most terrible thing of all to face, of all she had faced today. Ingrid had seen how little what she wanted mattered to anyone who had the power to shape her life, and yet, she still wanted.

Tonight, at least, what Ingrid wanted paled in comparison to what she needed. Legs wobbling as if her bones had turned to jelly while she was down on the floor, Ingrid got to her feet, at one point grabbing the bedframe for support when her wobbly legs threatened to give out beneath her. She could not go to sleep, not yet. There was still too much that needed to be done.

Her mouth was sour, full of the acrid aftertaste of bile. Though Ingrid had found the room dark and cold, once her candle was lit, she found the pitcher of drinking water and a cup waiting on the bedside table. A quick foray into the cabinet revealed the bottle of mouthwash she had left behind on accident when she had left to attend the Officers Academy. The vinegar was about as pleasant on her tongue as it ever had been, and the mint did not taste as fresh as it had at the beginning of the year (small wonder), but it was certainly still effective enough to override the taste of bile in her mouth. The water she rinsed her mouth out with afterwards was stale. Water, it remained. She had no complaint.

She would bathe later, and go to the apothecary for something stronger to scrub her teeth with come the morning. For now, Ingrid turned her attention to the dresser.

There was still a basin of water sitting out for her to wash her face in. The mirror was free of dust. Perhaps someone had been here recently, even if certain areas of care had been neglected. Those were thoughts and questions better reserved for the morning, when Ingrid might actually be capable of threading them together with any degree of skill. She would just make a mess of it tonight.

Ingrid could not say how long it took to scrub her face clean of the debris of Ailell. When she first started, she found to her surprise that thin streaks of skin were already clean of grime. Some trailed down from her brow, and that, she supposed, was to be expected. She’d poured out enough sweat to fill a lake, or so it felt like; it was inevitable that eventually it would have been enough to clean off at least part of her face.

Some of it trailed down from her eyes.

Ingrid chose not to dwell on that.

She scrubbed and scrubbed at skin crusted with layers of soot and ash and liberally spotted with blood, befouling the cloth set out beside the basin in the process. She felt as a snake must, when shedding its skin; the grime of Ailell was so closely bonded to her skin as to feel like a part of it, inextricable, and when at last she reached the layer closest to her own true skin, it was removed only with stinging pain.

Face clean, Ingrid’s eyes drifted to the basin, searching for some sign of truth in the reflection the waters would show her. But the water was full of soot and ash and dirt and blood. It reflected only itself, streaked gray and brown and black. It could tell her nothing of herself.

And so, for the first time in what felt like years, Ingrid looked at herself, _really_ looked at herself, in the gleaming, unmoving glass of a mirror.

What she saw did not at first look anything like her.

Staring back out at her was a girl whose pallid face was streaked with angry red marks from too harsh a scrubbing hand. The girl’s filthy hair was slipping free of its matted braid, hanging in sad, discolored clumps around her face and neck, no longer golden but the muted, lifeless gray-brown of grave dirt, as one would find in the churchyards where commoners laid their dead to rest.

No one would have looked at this girl and thought her hale and hearty. Black rings had bloomed around her eyes, the shadows of sleepless nights lingering on her skin to reproach her for all the times she had not gone seeking rest. Her eyes were not the bright, fearless eyes of a knight, nor the firm, resolute eyes of a lady, nor even the open eyes of a girl eager to see what her yet unwritten future had in store for her.

In the unfaltering glass of the mirror, lit only by the faint golden gleam of a single candle flame, Ingrid saw the eyes of a girl who could regard the future only as an abyss, with no light in its depths and no end whatsoever to the fall she would be made to endure.

In her reflection, Ingrid saw Ailell. Her face was clean, and yet some trace of Ailell remained, beyond her ability to wash away.

She turned the mirror down on its face.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : trauma]

The morning dawned cold and charcoal gray. No new snow had fallen during the night, but the gloomy clouds promised it, just as they would be promising rain once Ingrid made her way far enough south. Whether these clouds were capable of holding to their promises, Ingrid could neither say nor guess. She was no one to make guesses regarding whether anything or anyone was capable of keeping its promises.

Sometime after she had emerged from her bath, not clean but still so much cleaner than she had been before she entered it, a message came up from the town, one sentence only, on a scrap of thin, cheap paper:

_‘Do you wish to join us?’_

Aye, she did.

On the paper, she wrote one word only:

_‘No.’_

Soon thereafter, someone from the inn arrived at the castle, the pegasus Ingrid had taken from Garreg Mach in tow, along with all of the belongings Ingrid had carried with her on the trip, and forgotten back in the inn. She must thank them for the kindness, when once again they met. There were many things she must do, and thanking her friends less onerous than most of them.

Ingrid had dreamt, once she finally crawled into her bed. But she knew only that she had dreamt. She could not recall the dreams themselves. So there was that, at least. It was not what she had hoped for, but it was something.

So, the morning dawned cold and charcoal gray, the wet chill settling into the bones of everyone and everything who must, for whatever reason, venture out into it. Ingrid had thrown her spare winter cloak, heavy blue wool and heavier wolf-fur lining, on over her traveling clothes, and still, she could feel that chill. It did not matter. It was just the onset of winter. It did not matter.

The monastery pegasus had been freshly groomed and caparisoned over the course of the night. That did not matter, either. In all likelihood, all that mattered to the pegasus was returning to the gentler climes of Garreg Mach, returning to her companions in the stables, and having her first truly good meal in what would not doubt feel like an eternity. Grooming was good for keeping anything out of her hooves and wings that did not need to be there, but grooming was no doubt further down on the beast’s list of priorities than just going _home_.

Ingrid wished she could say that ‘home’ felt like a priority to her. But that would have been a lie.

“I would ask that you take the main road that cuts through the center of the territory,” Father said to her, as they made their way to the stable where Ingrid’s mount—and the complement of guards who had been assigned to her for the return trip—awaited her. “I have received word that the red wolves are growing more active in the mountains, and that the giant hawks have flown down from the peaks. You’ve not the force you would need to slay them.”

One of the many things Ingrid had been taught during her time in the Officers Academy was how best to dispatch monsters, when you had only a small force at your back. Father had never asked her anything about what she was learning in the Officers Academy. Ingrid kept what she had learned to herself, and only realized later that she had not even needed to bite her tongue.

In the pale light of dawn, as they stepped out into the chill and the wind, Father looked older than he had when Ingrid had left him last night. There was more gray in his beard than she recalled spying there before, and the lines in his face wended their way deeper, cutting more harshly across his skin. Under his eyes were the faint shadows of someone who did not look as if he’d gotten much sleep the night before. No doubt he had spent many hours drafting the letters he so urgently needed to send.

Ingrid did not search his eyes for any emotion in particular. She did not watch his mouth for the downward curve of a frown. She did not take special care to ferret out any special note in his voice. She could have spent the rest of her life doing that, if she had had the time or the inclination, but truth be told, she had neither. It was beyond her. (She would not have found it, anyways, what she might have chosen to look for.)

In the pale light of dawn, there were many things Ingrid might have asked her father. She might have asked him what it was that had made him so quick to accept the blandishments of one such as Niklaus Kneller. She might have asked him what exactly made him so reluctant to treat his daughter’s word, when she carried news home of Niklaus Kneller’s wrongdoings. She might have asked him why her word had not been enough when she said she had not been hurt in the battle. She might have asked him why her word could not be enough, and he could only accept the word of a physician after an examination had been performed.

Ingrid could well have asked her father why, of late, before she had entered Garreg Mach, the suitors he had allowed to meet her had been getting older and older. She could have asked him why he had indulged her dreams of knighthood when she was a child, but had then grown so troubled by them as she approached womanhood. She could have asked him why he would not clarify whether she or Séverin was his heir. She could have asked him why she, by herself, was not enough for him.

She could have asked him all of that, could have asked him every question that had ever crossed her mind and then gone unasked. It could have all tumbled from her mouth in a torrent, a host of words fit to dismantle the foundations of her world. She could have let it all loose in the cold air, and let the dice fall as they may.

Today, they went on unasked. Some, she could not guess at the answer to, and was fearful of hearing them, for once they were said, they could not be unsaid. Still more, she _did_ know the answer to, or thought she did; it would have been useless to go seeking answers, when they would be nothing but well-trodden words. (And well-trodden words could still sting. Ingrid had not forgotten that.)

Words said could not be unsaid. Once you said something, it could not be taken back. Ingrid knew that. She had not forgotten. Most things were beyond her this morning, but she was not totally heartless. Not yet.

Whatever her father might choose to say to her could not be unsaid, either. Ingrid did not think she was ready for that, not yet. She did not know when, or if, she would be.

They arrived at the stables where the pegasi were waiting, along with the guards. Kyphon stared Ingrid down almost indignantly, and even for him, Ingrid could not quite summon a smile, but she did go to his stall and pet him between his ears and on the crown of his head, and this did seem to appease him. Perhaps not _quite_ enough to make up for Ingrid having failed to take him with her to Garreg Mach, but it was appeasement on some level.

Her back turned to her father, she heard: “Ingrid?”

When she turned back to face him, it was to see one of the guards handing a long, thin object wrapped securely in white cloth to her father. Ingrid froze as she drank in the sight of the object, her eyes traveling its length up and down.

Even obscured, she knew it for what it was.

It was a lance.

And Ingrid knew of few lances within the walls of this keep that her father would have needed to handle so gingerly.

Father apparently saw no need to hold her in suspense; indeed, it would have been pointless to try, when they both knew what he held in his hands. “Long ago, the Goddess appointed to us a high doom. With that has come responsibilities and privileges alike, but nothing of greater import than this.” He smiled weakly. “When we separated from House Daphnel, we carried this with us to the Kingdom: our triumph over a rival in a succession crisis, and by far the greatest signifier of our high estate. Without this, House Galatea would be far less than what it is. We would be little different from the noble families of the Kingdom that arose after the War of Heroes: a lowly house with no pride.

“Long has Lúin gone without a wielder. The years grow long and our blood grows thin. I was not blessed by the Goddess with a Crest that would allow me to wield the lance safely; neither were either of my sisters, or our cousins. My first two sons were born, and neither bore the Crest of Daphnel. It was whispered in the courts of our friends and our rivals alike that perhaps Daphnel’s bloodline had failed and his heirs were but pretenders to his legacy. Perhaps the Goddess had withdrawn her favor from us forever.

“But then, you were born, and when the physicians and the mages examined your blood, they found the blessing we had feared had been withdrawn from us for all time.” Another weak smile, one that twitched and crawled around his lips before settling into moribund stillness. “You were the greatest blessing the Goddess could have bestowed upon our house in these troubled times. But I have withheld the highest privilege and responsibility of our house, and I…” He drew a deep breath, his free hand going to scrub at his brow “…begin to see that I erred in my judgment, when I chose to keep the lance from you.”

He stepped forward to hand the lance off to her. “Lúin is a weapon of great might and terrible power, a worthy equal to the Lance of Ruin and Areadhbar. It will be put to far better use protecting my daughter than gathering dust in a house where there lives no one who can wield it safely.”

And just like that, so simply, after all the years of behaving as though it would be the most difficult thing in the world, Lúin changed hands.

There had been a time when Ingrid had dreamed of this moment. How often had she longed for such a sign of acknowledgement, such a signal that her father found her worthy of his regard? Just a year ago, Ingrid would have done anything to wield Lúin in even a single battle, let alone hold it in her hands and hear it said that it was hers to keep and to use as she saw fit.

Once, she had longed for this as much as she had ever longed for anything in the world.

Now, she had it. Ingrid held Lúin in her hands, as she had once never seriously thought she would. She could not feel power pulsing through it as she thought. That wasn’t a consequence of the cloth wrapping the lance, serving as a buffer between Ingrid’s flesh and the shaft of the lance. This was one of the Heroes’ Relics; if Ingrid was going to feel power pulsing through it just by the act of wielding it, she doubted a buffer of simple cloth would have been enough to mask the feeling. There was just… nothing special to it that Ingrid could feel. It felt just like any other lance, except that it was heavier, and promised a keener blade.

There was something wrong with her, for her not to feel anything from this, but the knowledge that there was something wrong with her could not make Ingrid feel the wonder that should have overpowered her at being handed this most storied heirloom of her house.

The lance… was just a lance. Perhaps Ingrid would feel differently when she had left this place behind her, and she could feel the world properly once more. Perhaps she would feel differently once she had wielded it in battle. But Ingrid held Lúin in her hands, and the moment of taking possession was nothing like she had thought it would be. She could derive no sense of accomplishment or satisfaction from this.

And perhaps that had something to do with the circumstances by which Lúin had at last come into her possession. For this was not a signal of her father’s acknowledgment, was it? This was not a sign that Ingrid’s father thought that she could become a knight in her own right, not a sign that he thought her worthy of becoming his heir, not a sign that she, by herself, was _enough_. It was not any of that.

Her father was giving her Lúin as a means of protecting herself. And perhaps Ingrid would not have thought anything of that particular choice of words, except for what she could hear behind it, clear as day:

‘You were not capable of protecting yourself before.’

She wondered what, exactly, her father thought she had been learning at the Officers Academy. What he thought she had been doing all this time.

_Why—_

But that ‘why’ branched out in as many directions as there were branches on a tree. She had not the time to go chasing them all down.

Ingrid looked her father in the face then, spent a long moment drinking in his features. She would not search his face for any sign of anything, she truly did not have the energy in her for that, but she wanted to look, at least.

She wondered if he expected her to say something.

He probably did.

A ‘thank you’ would have been in order, at least.

And Ingrid did try to summon the words to her lips; truly, she did. She did at least know how irregular it was for the head of a noble house to just give a Hero’s Relic to someone who was not their publically acknowledged heir, even if that person was the only member of the house who could safely wield the Relic in question. She knew that people would talk, once news got out of where Lúin had gone.

She ought to say something, for however it might have been meant, this was a mighty gift.

The words would not come. They would not pass her lips, nor emerge from her throat. They would not even thread themselves together in her mind.

Ingrid nodded, able at least to inject the nod with the appropriate solemnity, and turned to mount her pegasus. She did not look her father’s way again. Not looking his way was the easiest thing she had done in days.

-

Gray and cold and quiet was the journey back to Garreg Mach. Two of Ingrid’s guards were pegasus riders, and thus, what solitude she might have found in the skies was shattered by the presence of the guards who stubbornly flanked every move she made to journey further south. She would have preferred solitude. Realistically, she would never have had it; no lord would allow his minor daughter to make so long a journey without the proper retinue—and there were some lords who would not have allowed it no matter the age of their daughter, so long as she yet lived under their roof. Realistically, she would never have had perfect solitude, but she had hoped the skies at least would be hers, and they were not, and the presence of chaperones felt like the bars of a cage.

They did not try to speak to her. There was that, at least. But still, the sky felt claustrophobic as it never should have, and Ingrid bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood, in the effort to not give some sign of her feelings.

Gray and cold and quiet was the journey. High up in the air, Ingrid could see the signs of habitation that had been invisible to her when she had traveled up the mountain road and gone as the crow flies over the moors. Villages and towns appeared as little blotches on the earth, far off towards the horizon, few and far between, but still more than Ingrid had caught sight of as she was flying north, as she was hastening towards the keep.

Those signs that had been invisible to her before did not make the land seem any gentler, any more hospitable, than it had ever seemed to her. Oh, beloved land, but not kind, nor forgiving. The people were left to eke a meager living from the poor soil, with no end in sight to their toil.

_One famine could destroy us all. One plague, one vast fire that swallows the trees and the fields and the peat. Any one thing could spell our doom._

No end in sight to balancing on the knife’s edge. No end to this tentative courtship with ruin.

Nothing that Ingrid knew of that would help. Not with the knowledge that was available to her as a child of the Kingdom.

She could have drowned in her helplessness, if she allowed herself to do so. Apathy was easier. Safer. Apathy was like sinking into a gentle, dreamless sleep. Ingrid knew she would have to wake and rise from the bed eventually, but for now, oh, for now, let her have this. It was not so much to ask.

All the way down, they had no trouble on the road, not even when crossing over the border of the Kingdom into the no-man’s land of the mountains surrounding the Church’s territory (Yes, it was _technically_ the Church’s territory, these stretches of mountainside, but they did not patrol it nearly as thoroughly as they ought, and one could only call themselves ruler of the lands which they actually had the resources to _protect_ —at least, that had always been Ingrid’s opinion, and she had never encountered anything that would have persuaded her to believe otherwise). That surprised her at first, but then, after some thought, it surprised her no more. She had removed the bindings concealing Lúin from plain sight early in the journey, and wore it strapped securely to her back since then. All this time, it had been nothing to her but a weight on her back, but she had watched the way the Crest stone illuminated when finally held directly in her hand. Any potential robber would have seen the livid glow of the Crest stone from the ground. Heroes’ Relics were well-known; it was a rare person in Fódlan who had not heard of them, or the lore surrounding them. Anyone who saw it would have known what that glow meant.

No, a lack of trouble on the road or in the mountains was not so surprising, after all.

Likewise, the weather was as fair as one could have expected for this time of year. There had been a light snow in the lands surrounding the keep, but the clouds at every stage south of there had reneged on their promises and there had been no snow nor, as they ventured further south and the temperatures grew milder, rain. They made good time on the road, and thus, Ingrid found herself arriving at the gates of Garreg Mach on a cloudy noon, a full half-day before the Archbishop had commanded she return.

The spires cut against the sky like white-washed knives. Pennants flapped in the wind like gigantic insect wings tacked to the stones and steel of the monastery. Here, no kidnapper or would-be husband could reach Ingrid, nor do her harm. That should have been reassuring. But all Ingrid could think was that if this place was the only safe place for her, then she must accept that home had not been safe.

Home had not been safe.

Ingrid swallowed thickly, nodded a farewell to the guards, and passed through the gates into the shelter of Garreg Mach.

She stayed on the pegasus for as long as she was in the town nestled against the titanic outer wall, riding against the ground rather than flying through the air (The archer-sentinels and pegasus and wyvern riders who patrolled the skies tended to take poorly to the sight of fliers whose identity and reason for being there they were not absolutely certain of). Where the town had always seemed so lively and colorful to her before, it seemed muted and dismally quiet to her now. Perhaps it was the light, perhaps the encroaching winter, or perhaps it was just her.

Once the shops and houses and public buildings of the town fell away, Ingrid dismounted the pegasus, and started to walk up the narrow, winding path through the fields left fallow since the last harvest. A shorter, gentler journey it had been, but she knew the beast was tired once more.

Soon. Very soon, now, she would return to her stables, and would no doubt be troubled no more.

Would that Ingrid could carry with her that same level of assurance.

As she neared the inner gates and the monastery proper, Ingrid saw something moving against the dead and browning grass. A thin, dark figure had appeared at the edge of the wall, hurrying towards her. She stopped, frowning, as the figure drew closer and she recognized it as Professor Melusine. She had known she would need to check in so that Professor Melusine would know that she had returned, but she’d not expected her leader during that last, terrible mission to be waiting for her at the gate.

“You’ve returned,” she muttered, in a low, slightly breathless voice, as she reached Ingrid. The hanging sleeves and long skirt of her houppelande fluttered in the wind like the wings of a bat. “Good. You must come with me.”

Ingrid blinked, the sudden thumping of her heart making her whole body ache. Her body was still too tender for something like this. She took a long breath. She felt like the pain, and the pained, falling feeling that accompanied it, would just grow and grow. “What…” She both dreaded and hungered for the answer to her question. “…What is happening?”

“Very little, for once. Professor Manuela wishes to see you in the infirmary.”

As they approached the inner gate, Professor Melusine explained to Ingrid what they had told the Archbishop upon returning without her. The story they had given to Lady Rhea was that they had been stalked by raiders through Galatea territory, eventually being driven to confront them at Ailell. There, the raiders had tried and failed to abduct Ingrid, recognizing her as Count Galatea’s daughter and supposing that she would have fetched a handsome ransom. Ingrid had been delayed by what she felt as an obligation to inform her father of banditry in his territory. Of those who had not been on the mission itself, only Professors Hanneman and Manuela knew the truth of what had actually occurred.

So, their cover story was not entirely alien to the truth. So much the better: it would make it easier for Ingrid to remember what she had to say, if ever she was called to account for herself before those who knew only the falsehoods.

(The need to lie rankled. She understood its necessity. It rankled, still.)

But the master of the infirmary knew the whole truth, and now, she wanted to see Ingrid for herself.

Heat pooled in her stomach, an uneasy, sickly sloshing. Ingrid wondered if she might not throw up again.

The pegasus was hastily stabled, and Ingrid’s pack and the lance that now was hers were stowed equally as hastily in Ingrid’s room in the dormitories. (Professor Melusine’s eyebrows rose a fraction as her gaze lingered upon Lúin, but she seemed to decide that questions would be better left for another time) Then, it was a quick, tense, silent walk to the second floor over the reception hall, where Professor Manuela was waiting, to do whatever she thought was appropriate.

Regardless of what Ingrid felt about it, no doubt.

Her heart quickened to a maddening, agonizing crescendo as they started on the stairs. What could she say, what could she _do_ , to prevent another experience like the one she’d had at the hands of Mistress Clothilde, at her father’s behest? She didn’t want it, didn’t want it, didn’t want to be poked or prodded or _examined,_ she would have given anything to avoid that, given her title, her birthright, the blood in her body that had been both blessing and curse. They could have it, and she would wish them joy of it. Just let her go untouched, without having to strip half-naked again for the satisfaction of questions that her word was not enough to satisfy.

Was there anything she could do to avoid going through all of that again?

_I can’t—_

Ingrid had been inside of the infirmary many times. On top of the healing sessions for her injured rib earlier in the year, she had occasionally been obliged to take classmates to the infirmary after accidents in the training grounds. The door, noticeably battered oak (the tales of Professor Manuela’s ‘adventures’ getting back inside after too much to drink had spread across the student body like wildfire), Ingrid had seen so often that she instantly spotted a new scratch on the door when she laid eyes on it. The odor of the rosemary Professor Manuela kept in the infirmary to keep the air fresh seeped out from under the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. And when Professor Melusine opened the door and nodded for Ingrid to go inside, absolutely nothing about the interior was unfamiliar to her.

No one had been born in this room. Ingrid had no doubt that people had died here in its time and theirs, but no one she _knew_. It was not the birthing chamber in the Galatea keep—it had not the same use, and bore absolutely no resemblance to that chamber beyond the presence of beds. The bottom was dropping out of the world just as it had been there, Ingrid’s vision narrowing to a dim, hazy circle spread out just a few feet around her, all the rest lost to shadow, her anxiety buzzing angrily in her ears.

Professor Hanneman was here as well, but Ingrid’s attention was not on him. He said something to her, but she could not hear it. All she heard clearly was the click and thud of the door shutting behind her, and Professor Manuela, after turning to her, saying;

“Well, there you are. I have to admit, I was hoping you would be a little earlier.”

Ingrid drew herself up, acutely aware of how much the action failed to make her seem like anything but a vulnerable young girl who had nothing as a shield but flimsy words. “I… I have already been examined.” There was no hiding or mistaking the tremor in her voice. She hated it, despised it, loathed that weakness, but it flowed from her lips like filthy water, polluting every fiber of her skin, as well as her mind. “I promise you, there is no need for another examination; the physician was quite confident that there had been no sign of—“

And now, so weak was she that she did not even have the strength to finish the sentence.

 _I can’t do this again_ , her voice chimed in her mind, calmer and steadier and colder than anything presently capable of passing her lips. _I can’t do this again_ , she thought, in a voice that was both totally unlike her own, and more like her own than any other she had ever heard.

Professors Melusine and Manuela stared at her blankly, as if they did not understand. And perhaps they did not. They were both of common birth, and Ingrid did not think a woman’s virginity before marriage mattered quite so much, when her own intimate affairs were not also dynastic affairs. _What would he have done if I had been—_

At last, Professor Hanneman cleared his throat, his awkwardness plain even past the buzzing in Ingrid’s ears. “Miss Ingrid, Professor Manuela merely wishes to ensure you were not too badly injured in the battle.” His face colored a harsh, tomato red. “I assure you, we do not consider such examinations necessary. Professor Manuela has already seen to everyone who went on your mission with you. She would just rather ensure that there are no underlying injuries you own castle physician may have missed.” He pinned a bright, utterly unconvincing smile to his face. “She is, after all, a very conscientious physician—she would not wish for your injuries to go without her care.”

Silence descended over the infirmary as Professor Manuela stared at him with both eyebrows raised, mouth falling open in a gape of thoroughly unflattering disbelief. “So _this_ is what it takes to get a compliment out of you,” she said tartly. “Why, I had no idea you had it in you.”

Professor Melusine’s face screwed up in a display of emotion the likes of which Ingrid had never seen from her before, and what an emotion it was. “Oh, dear,” she muttered, her mingled disappointment and lack of enthusiasm starkly clear. She went to sit on the bed closest to the door, folding her hands down on her lap, the tension in the back of her hands obvious even from where Ingrid was standing, several feet away.

“Ha!” Professor Hanneman laughed humorlessly. “If I could find any other compliment to give you, I would. Alas, you have hardly left me spoiled for choice.”

“Oh, that’s _just_ fine; I don’t live my life going out of my way to please you, you know!”

Professor Melusine cleared her throat. “Let’s all get along,” she pleaded.

Ingrid felt a little as if she had just walked into a dream. She did not particularly care for how it felt.

Professor Hanneman cleared his throat as well, considerably more loudly than Professor Melusine, muttering an apology—and a noticeably grudging one, at that.

This was Professor Manuela’s cue to take over. “Well!” Her voice was infused with somewhat strained cheer. Normally, her voice was nearly as musical and pleasing to listen to as Dorothea’s, if of a different timbre, and the strain made her voice sound a little like a poorly-tuned fiddle. “You’re well enough to stand. I’ll take that as a good sign. But if you are injured, then tell me where and I’ll make sure you’re right as rain in no time flat.”

“I…” Oh, but she had been foolish. So foolish that only duty compelled her to admit: “I did receive a wound to my arm in Ailell. But Linhardt healed it,” Ingrid hastened to add, her face growing hot as duty took second place to the realization that she would just be wasting all of their time. “The wound is closed, and troubles me no more.”

Well, it itched a little, and Ingrid found her arm a little tender at times. But the substantial part of that statement was true.

“Linhardt, huh?” Only one eyebrow rose this time. Professor Manuela motioned for Ingrid to go sit on one of the beds. “Well, roll up your sleeve and let me see what the damage is.”

With considerably steadier hands this time around, Ingrid removed her glove and rolled up her sleeve. Washed clean of the blood that had crusted the skin around it, the place where she had been slashed still bore signs of having been troubled with a blade in the recent past. The place where the blade had struck was an angry pink color, the jagged line still clearly visible. The wound would scar later, Ingrid was certain. The wound would scar later, Ingrid hoped. She wanted the reminder. She was not certain as to why, but the desire for a reminder was overpowering within her.

(Later, she would think that perhaps she simply wanted proof that she had gone through that ordeal, and yet survived it. That the whole thing had not been a nightmare, and that she could not simply write it off as one.)

The wound would certainly scar, but Ingrid did not think it would reopen. Right now, it was a mass of patchy pink scabs, and she’d not seen so much as one drop of blood ooze from any of them over the past few days, though she would admit that she had been careful not to do anything that might strain those scabs (She was on the road, and did not know if any of her guards had any experience of healing magic; playing it safe had seemed the most sensible course of action).

“Huh.” Professor Manuela’s mouth quirked in a strange, lopsided line. Not quite a smile, but still, it had some of the features of one. “Linhardt does better work than I thought.”

“I was very clear on the terms of our arrangement,” Professor Melusine responded simply. “He has ever abided by them.”

“And I’m sure his professor sitting right next to him learning the same things in the healing lessons has _nothing_ to do with it!”

To that, Professor Melusine could only shrug. “I cannot say.”

A sigh and a smile later, Professor Manuela turned her attention back to Ingrid. “Well, as far as I can see, this is healing nicely, and there’s no sign that any part of the wound is starting to fester. I would ask that you avoid any overexertion for the next four days, and that you come back to me then so I can give it another look. And _do_ come find me if you start to see signs of infection—fever, increased pain, discoloration, swelling, pus, the works.”

Ingrid let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. It would have been… Well, it would have been well beyond the capacity of her control on her temper if she took away a permanent injury from this most recent ordeal. She still hoped for a scar, though.

Off to the side, Professor Hanneman audibly sucked in a breath. “Now that that is settled—“

Professor Melusine pinned him with a long, sharp stare. “The door is shut. However—“ she straightened a little, more than Ingrid would have thought possible, considering how straightly she was already sitting “—this floor is not empty, and the walls are not so thick as to completely block out sound.”

Flopping down in the chair by her desk, Professor Manuela propped her elbow up on her desk, and her chin on her elbow. “Yeah, Hanneman. Much as I understand the urge—“ her voice hardened “—I think this chat should just be between the four of us, don’t you?”

Oh. Another conversation. How wonderful.

Ingrid could not see any way out of this, and it would have been rude to try to excuse herself when all three of the professors apparently wished to speak with her. She steeled herself as much as she could, and waited. At the very least, they were unlikely to keep her past a few hours. (All at once, the sheer _length_ of a ‘few hours’ crashed down on Ingrid. She tried to ignore it.)

After a long moment of what definitely _seemed_ like resistance against the restraint his colleagues preached, Professor Hanneman visibly deflated. “I—“ He shook his head. “I concede that my initial reaction was perhaps a bit lacking in discretion.”

“That’s not the problem, Hanneman. I’m only taking issue with your _volume_. If you could sing, I’d stick you on a stage; you’d have _no_ problems making yourself heard to the people at the back.”

“They both have things they wish to discuss with you,” Professor Melusine addressed Ingrid. “Once they have discovered how to do so.”

Professor Hanneman scoffed hotly, though the tone of his scoff sounded just a tad… performative. “I assure you, I know exactly what must be said.”

“Is that so?” With a slow, small smirk curling on her lips, Professor Manuela sweetly asked, “Then why were you going _on_ and _on_ about how much we need to be ‘gentle’ and ‘delicate,’ right after you stopped shouting?”

More than ever, Ingrid felt as if she had stumbled into a dream, and someone else’s dream, at that. No, the experience was not an especially pleasant one. It was not so much that she actively disliked it, more that the experience was disorienting, making her feel as if the world was spinning around her, while she herself sat perfectly still.

‘Gentle.’ ‘Delicate.’ Well, that answered the question of just what they wished to talk to her about. Ingrid slowly rolled her sleeve back down, not bothering to slip her glove back on. Her ears, which had stopped buzzing a few minutes prior, were starting to buzz again, if at a lower pitch and volume than before. The air of the room was stale and close as it had been in the birthing chamber, and the resemblance was making the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end. No, not again. She did not want to do this again. But where the idea of another examination made her giddy with barely-restrained panic, now, she just felt tired.

The prospect of having to recount what had happened and _nearly_ happened to her brought her low with exhaustion. When she thought of having to pour it all out, having to skewer her pride and her honor and her heart with the toothy shadows that now clustered around her, her limbs felt leaden, her mind sluggish, her heart slow and heavy. But a spark of irritation existed there as well. This was not a tale she wished to relate to spectators over and over again. Nothing that had happened to her was something Ingrid wished to become a subject of entertainment to others.

_I am tired of tales._

And so tired was she that Ingrid could only summon momentary surprise at such a thought.

While Ingrid was mired in such thoughts, the three professors of the Officers Academy had taken the time to come to some form of accord. Professor Hanneman cleared his throat and, after a few moments in which her body was slow to respond to what her mind had registered, Ingrid turned her gaze upon him.

Professor Hanneman had taken one of the chairs scattered around the infirmary, and come to sit down some ten feet in front of Ingrid. She could see anger smoldering his eyes like coals, but his tone as he spoke was so terribly gentle that Ingrid could at least tell that none of his anger was for her. “Miss Ingrid…” He hesitated, shaking his head. His hands were threaded together in his lap, and as Ingrid watched them, she watched them start to shake. “You have undergone a very difficult experience. First of all, let me say that you have been a very diligent student, and I believe the Academy would be poorer for your absence—“ Ingrid’s heart dropped “—but that if you wish to return home, I will help you do so without any undue fuss.”

Ingrid shook her head violently. Oh, here was something she could still feel: defiance. “ _No_. I worked too hard just to have the chance to be here.” And the expense was no longer as much of a concern to her. “I will not give up on my studies now.”

Even though she was no true knight, had never felt the kiss of the sword on her shoulders, and seemed too weak to be worthy of standing among all the true knights who had come before. She did not want to give this up. She was not strong enough, if she had been strong enough she would not now feel this way, but she did not want to give this up. Giving this up would mean having to return home.

The looks on Professor Manuela and Hanneman’s faces were ones of undeniable approval. Professor Melusine was, as anyone could have predicted, rather more reserved, but there was a gleam in her eyes that Ingrid had seen there before, when a student performed especially well in a sparring session.

“Good!” Professor Manuela’s mouth unfurled in a smile far more generous than her previous smirk had been. “You didn’t strike me as the sort of girl to curl up in a ball and give up at the first sign of trouble. I’d have been kinda worried if you actually _did_ want to go home.”

Somehow, that did not make Ingrid feel better the way she suspected it had been intended to. She was not sure how they would take it, if she told them how she felt about home, at this moment. Better to keep it to herself.

Professor Hanneman was smiling as well, though Ingrid could still see the anger smoldering behind his eyes, a banked flame that could well and truly ignite at any moment. Though still not meant for her, she could not help but mark it. It was better to mark the anger of those around you. It was wiser to do that, then to let it creep up on you unawares.

“Yes, I am pleased to hear you will be staying,” he agreed. “An education is a terrible thing to waste, and I believe you still yet have many ways you could profit from learning at the Officers Academy.”

No, Ingrid did not know how they would take her attitude towards home at all. Professor Hanneman did not seem at all fond of his former home, and as far as she knew, Professor Melusine had never stayed in any one place for too long, but Professor Manuela in particular might take issue. Ingrid could not say with certainty how Professor Manuela remembered and regarded Enbarr. She could not say how Professor Melusine remembered and regarded any of the places where she had lived over the years; the woman was especially opaque regarding such things. And even Professor Hanneman could have positive memories of _some_ of his life in the Empire. If she was honest with them, if she told them exactly what she held in her heart at this moment, she could not say how they would respond.

True honesty, the sort of honesty that spilled directly from the heart, felt beyond her, now.

“Yes, that is good.” Professor Hanneman was nodding his head vigorously, as if this was class and he had been drawn into an especially engaging tangent. “That is very good. However, I would also like you to know that…” He paused, visibly groping for words. He tapped one long finger against his knee; the tremor in his hands was less noticeable now, but still present. “Well, I think we would all like you to know that if there is anything you need to talk about, you can come to any of us to speak of it. We professors of the Officers Academy are responsible for the care of every student we teach, you very much included. You have had a very trying experience; we can all see that. Even if you had not, we are all available if ever you need someone to talk to.”

Not for the first time in recent events, Ingrid’s skin felt entirely too tight for her body as she nodded silently. She had thought she knew what a snake shedding its skin must feel like when she was scrubbing the debris of Ailell from her face. Now, she thought she knew what it felt like to be a snake just before its skin was ready to molt. She felt tight, and restricted, her too-small skin pressing down on her throat and making breathing at best a chore, and at worst a painful ordeal.

Who would listen to the thoughts racing through her mind, mean and deviant and ungrateful as they were, and yet accept them? Who would listen to those thoughts, and yet accept her?

(Did she even want acceptance anymore?)

“The same goes for me,” Professor Manuela chimed in, if in considerably more relaxed of a tone than Professor Hanneman. “You and I haven’t had much of a chance to speak, but I _think_ I have perspective on some things that Hanneman lacks. Trust me, it’s no trouble; it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve counseled unhappy girls.”

Judging from what Dorothea had shared of the time she had shared in Mittelfrank with Professor Manuela, Ingrid had little doubt of that. It sounded as if Professor Manuela had had plenty of opportunity to counsel unhappy girls—and to do a lot more related to their welfare than just that.

Still, Ingrid could not will her skin to feel as it ought as she nodded, just as silently as before.

A soft swish of cloth signaled Professor Melusine getting to her feet. She paused a few feet shy of the bed where Ingrid sat, the quality of her stillness noticeably hesitant. “There are things I can teach you, if you wish,” she said softly. “I do not think that the Church would care for me to teach a noble student thus, but they are other means of protecting yourself, should the need arise.” Her face hardened. “That is what the Church hired me to do, after all.”

Finally, Ingrid’s jaw unstuck enough for her to murmur, “Thank you.”

A harsh intake of breath signaled the flaring of Professor Hanneman’s anger. “Yes, something that will enable her to protect herself. Just as that dratted man should have been doing in the _first place_.”

Professor Manuela crossed one leg over the other, sinking her weight heavily against the cushioned back of the chair. “Here we go again,” she muttered.

If this was meant to defuse Professor Hanneman’s anger, to say that the effort had failed would have been a gross understatement. “Well, pardon me for believing a man’s duty to his daughter is to ensure he is not marrying her off to some sort of heartless deviant!”

Heat rushed into Ingrid’s face. Her skin crawled and writhed as she fought the urge to squirm in her seat, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone else in the room, fearful of what they would see in her eyes. _I can’t—_

“I’m not arguing with you, Hanneman! For once in our lives, we are in complete and total agreement! But I’ll remind you that donations from noble parents are what’s keeping us paid and fed, and you can’t just—“

Apparently, as far as Professor Hanneman felt, he indeed could. “I’ve half a mind to write the man a letter. Considering how quickly the truth was uncovered once _anyone_ set their will to discovering it, I sincerely doubt it would have taken him that much time to discover it for himself. It’s laziness, pure and simple laziness, and I shall tell him that myself!”

“Please don’t,” Ingrid muttered, face flaming with mortification at the thought of such a confrontation.

Perhaps it was a blessing that Professor Hanneman, thoroughly engrossed by this quasi-argument with Professor Manuela and by his own anger, did not hear her. When Professor Melusine caught her eye and nodded silently at the door, Ingrid took the opportunity presented to her, and exited the infirmary. She was not fleeing it. Fleeing it would have involved a great deal more speed, and anyone who might have wished to chase after her actually being cognizant of the fact that she was leaving. She was not fleeing.

Even with the door shut behind her, she could still hear Professor Hanneman ranting, though the words were muffled and rendered indecipherable by stone walls.

Ingrid had been taught since earliest childhood not to slouch, nor lean her weight against walls when standing. True, she was not always able to follow those edicts, but she had _tried_ to practice proper posture. In addition to maintaining her standing in the world, proper posture had always been an integral component to maintaining the health of her back. That, Ingrid had always believed. But now, her legs were wobbling and her back ached, and she pressed her back against the wall, finding the strength and stability in unyielding stone that she could not derive from her own body.

Was it always to be like this?

With a weary hand, Ingrid scrubbed her brow, fingertips searching for a headache to knead away. The pain had not yet bloomed beneath her skin, but she could feel the tension in her jaw and neck and shoulders that presaged a headache. After everything that had happened, a headache would have been the least surprising thing of all.

_Here is my weakness; I need others to prop me up. I need other people to give me some sort of—_

She had not said goodbye to her father. She had not looked his way as she rode away from the keep. What keened inside of her now was not regret, but it bore the acrid taste of fear. She had not said goodbye to her father. It made her feel unmoored, as if she was floating in the air without a rope or an anchor to bring her back down to the earth. She would go hurtling through the air, without food or drink or rest or relief, with nothing to tie her down, nothing to give her any of the stability she needed.

 _No one will think me a knight, or a lady. All they will need to do is look at me to see the fear inside of me, to see what makes me so weak._ She’d felt her tight skin, and likened it to a snake. But in mind and heart, she felt more like a mouse or a rabbit, jumping at even the slightest threat.

Ingrid stared down at her shaking hands. She could not hold a lance or a sword in such shaking hands. _Why did_ any _of this—_

“Ingrid?”

Ingrid jolted to her full height, eyes darting wildly around until they settled on—

Her stomach fluttered, not the churning of nausea, but still disorienting and maddening. She linked her hands behind her back, the better to hide their shaking, and tried at a long, deep breath.

_Don’t smile. She’ll know._

“Edelgard.” Ingrid nodded awkwardly. “Forgive me. I did not realize you were there.”

If that was meant to reassure Edelgard, it did not work. She had been frowning before, and her frown only deepened.

Edelgard took a step forward, stepping into the light of one of the lanterns hanging from hooks on the walls. The light cast a glimmering halo about her head, making her hair gleam and her eyes shine. She looked utterly unreal, and Ingrid’s stomach fluttered once more—oh, how she hated that feeling; oh, how she hated that she could feel such a thing at a time like this, that she could feel such a thing at all.

As if there was some invisible wall towering between them, Edelgard came to an abrupt halt a few feet away from where Ingrid stood, resting a gloved hand on her left hip. “Yes, I can see that.” Her pale brows knit. “Indeed, you seemed quite lost in thought.”

Ingrid had to stop herself from trying to smile. She could already taste the bitterness coating her teeth. “There is quite a lot going on. I have missed more than a week of classes, after all.” That was the _least_ of what Ingrid had ‘going on,’ but perhaps that was what made it easier to talk about. It was the only thing that did not strike at the very heart of her.

It would have been useless to expect this to satisfy Edelgard, and sure enough, her brow knit further, the furrowed line between her eyebrows drawing deep shadows. “Yes,” she agreed in a soft voice, “there is quite a lot going on. But that is by far the least of it, at least for you. How are you, Ingrid?”

To her horror, Ingrid could feel her face grow hot, _here_ , where there was no darkness or grime to hide the red tint entering into her skin. “I’m fine,” she said, and her horror only redoubled at the choked quality of her voice.

“Are you?”

Edelgard knew. Ingrid knew she knew, and most likely, Edelgard knew that Ingrid knew. Why this pretense, Ingrid could not begin to imagine. It was not a shield or a veil; it served only to make Ingrid feel as though every thought in her mind was utterly transparent to Edelgard’s quick and discerning eyes (And wasn’t that a terrifying thought?). If it was some misguided attempt to preserve Ingrid’s _dignity_ , that had failed miserably. Besides, Ingrid’s dignity had been murdered in Ailell, when she had been made over into something that could have a price attached to it, when she had been made over into something that could be bought and sold as no human should be.

_And what, then, is the bride price?_

That was different.

_How, exactly, is it different?_

Commoners obtained bride prices for their daughters, and no one behaved as though those daughters were being bought and sold. That was how it had been since time immemorial, and no one behaved as if it was some sort of deviant business transaction. That was not what this was. It was only in Ailell that—

But Ingrid could not finish the thought. Her mind could not find the words.

“Yes, I am.”

_No, I’m not._

Edelgard’s mouth contorted in a frown that had more of the qualities of a scowl. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you.” Relief warred with panic in Ingrid’s mind and chest, the fluttering in her stomach worse than ever. “You are _not_ alright,” Edelgard insisted. Her face darkened. “I think you will find it difficult to be alright in a world such as this one. If you wish to speak of it with me, I will speak of it with you. I suspect we will have much to talk about.”

The memory of scars twisted and writhed in Ingrid’s mind. _Will we speak of that?_ she wondered irresistibly, however inappropriate that might have been. It was not for her to ask, nor even speak of, those damning and damnable scars, though that argument suddenly seemed far less convincing than it had just a few days prior. It was not for her to ask after, but when had her curiosity ever not been intense?

But if she accepted the offer, if she acknowledged all that went along with it, where would that leave her? Ingrid looked down that path, and could see only impenetrable night, a moonless, cloud-choked night with no lantern to serve as a guiding light through the dark. She would become lost. She would never find her way into daylight again, and everyone would know. Everyone would know where her straying feet had carried her. And there were plenty of people waiting with punishing blades for the lost…

“I am well.” The reassurance dragged itself from Ingrid’s mouth a third time, even hollower than the previous two.

This time, Edelgard did not bother meeting her with a retort. She simply inclined her head, still deeply skeptical, and walked away.

Ingrid watched her go, eyes lingering on her with a hunger that made her feel sick in stomach, sick in mind, and sick at heart.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : Internalized homophobia, trauma, obliquely suicidal thoughts]

Of course, news of the attempted kidnapping in Ailell would spread. This was Garreg Mach, after all, where gossip flew on wings more fleet than those of any wyvern or pegasus. Likely, news had spread and taken root long before Ingrid had made her way back here. She had not even had a few blissful hours of barely anyone knowing what had happened while she was out of the monastery with the Black Eagles. No, she just _had_ to come back to a place where everyone had already had the time to hear the story over and over again and form conclusions upon the same.

Well, a version of the story, at least. No one knew the full truth, beyond Ingrid, the Black Eagles (sans Flayn), and the three professors of the Officers Academy. That meant that Ingrid had avoided drawing the full attention of the Knights of Seiros or Church officials, as apparently attempted kidnappings of adolescent girls were so mundane to them that it was not worth more than momentary notice. The most she had had to contend with was Seteth pulling her into his office to offer to send a few of the lower-ranking knights to act as guards for her journey back to Galatea territory at the end of the year. She had accepted, of course. It would not do to be rude—anything out of the ordinary might have made him suspicious that the trip north had been something other than what it was.

That only a certain version of the story, leaving out the fact that the men who had attempted to abduct her had been doing so on behalf of a man who meant to marry her, meant that her classmates’ reactions to the incident were just a touch… jarring.

Felix and Dedue were far and away the most easily dealt with. Felix did not speak of matters that touched him near unless he found himself completely, uncharacteristically overcome with emotion, or was otherwise pressed to do so. After confirming that the version of the tale he had heard was ‘true,’ he had nodded solemnly, congratulated her on dispatching her would-be abductors (as if it had been a sign of strength, as if it had been a sign that there was anything inside of her worth respecting or admiring), and gone on as though it hadn’t happened. Well, asides from the odd looks he would occasionally send her way when he thought she wasn’t looking (Had he forgotten how long they had known each other? Had he forgotten that she knew what to look for when it came to him, knew it like she knew the back of her own hand?). But he did not approach her again, did not try to have a _conversation_ with her, giving Ingrid the gift of space to watch her mind unravel, without someone else breathing down her neck.

And Dedue was… Well. They had spoken of the things that lied between them. And by mutual agreement, they had gone on interacting with each other as little as possible, beyond what was obligated, even after they had discussed what lied between them. Dedue yet honored that agreement, and had not tried to discuss what had happened while she was away.

They were the easy ones, the ones who either spoke to her once and but briefly, or did not speak to her of it at all. Neither of them were trying to harmonize with what they thought the ‘appropriate’ emotional response to be.

When Ingrid dealt with the rest, she had to contend with _their_ feelings, as well as the feelings they thought appropriate to her. She must deal with Ashe’s smiling relief that she had come through the ordeal ‘alright,’ and Sylvain’s significantly more uneasy, giddy relief regarding the same, the way his eyes would shift from side to side and high-pitched, feeble laughs would jar from his mouth. She must contend with Annette’s bizarrely innocent sympathy—to her, it was like something out of a story, like something from a nightmare, something that could _never_ happen to ordinary people, and that was so laughable that Ingrid nearly _did_ laugh, though she did not think the sound would have been anything human. The laugh that crawled around in her throat sounded a lot more like the screech of an angry hawk.

Dimitri’s anger was poorly-suppressed, and had been the most jarring of her classmates’ reactions by far. It had been years since they were last allowed to associate on a regular basis, and Ingrid could not remember this anger in him before. It seethed in him behind some pretense of courtliness, and the sight of it almost frightened her. What frightened her more was that the anger in him clearly sought a match in her. It made her want to speak with him less. It made her want to see him less.

Mercedes’s reaction was not unexpected. It was not unexpected, and all the more terrible for it. She had all the sympathy Annette had brought to bear, but with none of the same bizarre innocence. Instead, she behaved very much as though what had nearly become of Ingrid was a natural, entrenched part of the world, which was admittedly far less jarring than the way Annette had behaved as though it was _not_ something that typically happened in this world. Some of the ways she looked at Ingrid, some of the things she said, made Ingrid ridiculously fearful that someone in the know might have let something slip to her, but Mercedes never bridged that last gap. She never gave any definitive sign of knowing the whole truth, but the vaguely knowing quality of her sympathies was enough to make Ingrid feel far more seen than she cared to be. She found herself avoiding Mercedes, as well.

But then, she was avoiding them all. Ingrid could only tolerate sympathy for so long, when offered in this place and this time, and for this reason. Her capacity for dealing with other people’s sympathy was impaired. She could not accept it gladly. She did not want to snap at them for something everyone would have agreed was only natural.

She did not want to expose what lurked inside of her to the daylight, for all to see its deviance.

If they all thought she was getting over it as quickly as she possibly could, if they all thought that it had not affected her too much to start with, perhaps they would leave her alone more quickly. Perhaps, if she convinced them all that the incident was nothing worth troubling themselves over, they would forget about it, and trouble her no more over that which she wanted nothing more than to forget.

But she was not going to forget it, was she?

No, Ingrid was not going to forget it. It followed her everywhere she went. It had stripped away every wall she had built up to hide what lurked in the back of her mind, rendering every thought and fear and desire that had ever crept and crawled in Ingrid’s mind fully visible to everyone around her, or so she felt. She felt exposed, and no amount of clothing piled up over her body could make her feel any less so, could make her feel any less as if she had wandered out of her room naked.

Ingrid was not going to forget it. It was not going to allow anyone else to forget it, either. Hot gossip wasn’t going to die off of the landscape as quickly as all that. If nothing else happened, Ingrid could be the biggest topic of gossip for the rest of the year, without end or reprieve. It had been one thing after another this year, and it was entirely possible that something else would come along that would direct everyone’s attention away from her, but what if that something never came?

What if Ingrid could not escape this scrutiny for the rest of the year?

What if she could not escape the feeling that everyone was on tenterhooks around her, that everyone was watching her for any sign of weakness, that everyone was determined to treat her as ‘delicately’ as possible?

What if she spent the rest of the year still feeling as if her mind was totally exposed, as if every inch of her skin was visible to every set of eyes that ever lit upon her?

Ingrid had sworn to others and to herself that she would not leave the Officers Academy before the end of the school year. Even if she had not the strength to become a knight, even if the people who had sent her here had never believed her capable of becoming a knight in the first place, she was _here_ , in this place of learning, and she would not be dislodged from it before her time. She would eke every drop of knowledge she could from this place. She would not allow anyone to stop her.

She would not be budged from her hard-won place at the Officers Academy. But if she was made to live out the rest of the year like _this_ , her hard-won place would become unloved and joyless. Ingrid would cling by her fingernails to her chair, and all the while would come to hate that chair more and more, for all that it represented, for all that the whispers did to her.

Never let it be said that Ingrid gave up easily.

But she did not think she would enjoy it.

-

“I’m glad everything worked out."

The steps up to the sauna were out of the way, and rarely used in the evenings. Though the weather still felt markedly mild to Ingrid, everyone who had come from anywhere south of the Kingdom, or even east of it (apparently, winters in all but the northernmost parts of the Alliance tended to be much milder than Kingdom winters), preferred at this time of year to make trips to the sauna in the middle of the day, and only when the sun was out and there was very little wind.

Herself, Ingrid did not visit the sauna very much. The air quickly became stuffy and unbearably close after even a little steam was added, and she couldn’t stand to stay in there for more than a few minutes at a time. It was good for a short trip if her muscles were very sore after training, but that had been less of a problem as the year wore on and the weather slowly approached something even Ingrid would have wanted to seek refuge from. But the steps were indeed pretty far out of the way of anywhere most students would want to go when day approached night, and thus, it was somewhere open to the sky where she could talk with a reasonable assurance of privacy.

“Yes,” Ingrid murmured, not looking Dorothea’s way. “So am I.”

Dorothea twisted the delicate band of the ring Ingrid had fished out of her sparsely populated jewelry box over and over on her littlest finger. The more the year wore on, the more Ingrid noticed these little tics of hers. Perhaps Dorothea had always fidgeted like this, and it was only when she did so in strikingly noticeable ways like twirling her hair around her finger that Ingrid noticed it. Or perhaps the year was wearing on more people than just Ingrid, and these gestures were new, or they had previously been suppressed, and were now resurfacing.

Ingrid could not begin to guess. She could not begin to guess how to ask. It was a question that would have to go unanswered. She didn’t have the energy to go wading about in the stew of someone else’s nervous tics, and all that had spawned them.

Dorothea smiled warmly at her. “I haven’t heard very much about your father, but he didn’t sound like the sort of man who’d want his daughter married to someone who wouldn’t treat her right.”

In the absence of anything she could say to that that would not have been too revealing (not that Ingrid could think of anything that would have been _more_ revealing than what was already crawling about inside of her, clearly visible to everyone around her—or so she felt), Ingrid nodded silently. She tried not to think about the other men her father had brought around the keep. Tried not to think about the things they may or may not have done. She tried also not to think about Viscount Kleiman’s second son, his laughter, the blood.

Trying not to think about it was no use. She thought about it. And then, she thought about it some more.

Thinking about it was oddly addictive. But Ingrid would not be telling Dorothea that.

The smile drifted from Dorothea’s mouth, like a cloud passing over the sun. In the shadows of afternoon rapidly speeding towards sunset, the lines that furrowed around her frowning mouth looked as if they’d been carved there roughly with a knife. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything else about Niklaus, have you?”

If Ingrid never heard anything more about Niklaus Kneller for the rest of her life, it would be too soon to hear that he had been consigned to the eternal flames some five minutes before she entered the Goddess’s embrace. It would _certainly_ have been too soon to hear anything about him now. Mercifully, she was at least able to shake her head. “No, I have not. My father mentioned that he would open an inquiry. I doubt that he will keep me apprised of any updates regarding the inquiries unless I am called to Fhirdiad to give testimony.”

No, he would not tell her of anything new that happened. As far as Father was concerned, it was no doubt enough for Ingrid that he had terminated the negotiations without a betrothal being involved. Why would she worry about it any further? What would compel him to keep his daughter informed of any developments, when everything _she_ must worry about had since passed her by?

(She didn’t know what she wanted. If she never heard Niklaus Kneller’s name again, it would be too soon, but the idea of him just walking the earth, with her completely oblivious to where he was, made her heart begin to race once more, made her stomach churn. If he was free to go where he pleased, he could come _here_. There was a certain advantage in having _some_ adults in the monastery who knew who and what he was—she would have _someone_ to go to if he came here—but still, if he came here, if she had to confront him face to face…

What was more likely? Would she gore him on a lance or stab him with a sword? Or would she just break into a sweat and run as fast as her legs could carry her? Ingrid honestly could not say. She liked to believe she had the strength for a confrontation, liked to say that she could draw up some fragment of her dignity, but her dignity had been murdered in Ailell, and her strength had died there, too. Who could say what Ingrid would do, when left only with the resorts of the weak?)

Dorothea’s frown deepened. “That’s too bad. I’d like to know what they do to him once they get him.”

“They’ll execute him, of course. The law is very clear on the subject of slavers.”

“Hmm.” Dorothea pursed her lips, her frown softening a little in pensive bemusement. “Maybe in the Kingdom, the law’s clear-cut. But I come from a place where it means different things for different people—“ she laughed darkly “—and for some people, it doesn’t mean anything at all.” She picked at her skirt. “I just worry about him showing up here and trying something. I don’t think the Archbishop cares very much, but it would be hard to explain to Seteth.”

_How are you so much stronger than I am?_

Dorothea had mentioned that she had survived kidnapping attempts herself at some point during her time in the Mittelfrank Opera Company. She had survived those kidnapping attempts when she was younger than Ingrid was now, no doubt with less support than Ingrid had enjoyed, and somehow, Ingrid very much doubted that any of Dorothea’s would-be kidnappers’ plans had involved keeping her alive in the long term. Dorothea had been, at that time, neither rich, high-born, nor in possession of a Crest—there would have been little reason for a kidnapper to keep her alive once their initial purpose in abducting her had been fulfilled.

All that, and yet Dorothea could still live her life as though it had all barely touched her. She spoke of it with anger and irritation, but not with tremendous fear or panic. She had walked away from it perhaps slightly shaken, but the experience did not rule her life and the way she lived it. It did not shape all of her thoughts the way it did Ingrid’s. She could still be normal.

Would that Ingrid could live with that sort of strength. Would that she could guess at just what Dorothea had inside of her that made her so much stronger. The question lingered on her lips, so powerful that she could taste it:

_‘How do you do it?’_

But she could not bring herself to ask it. That would only have made her weaker. She must find some way to deal with this herself. She could not burden others with her troubles.

“Soooo…” Dorothea said, drawing out the ‘o’ until it sounded like the moaning of the wind.

It was only one word, but something about it sounded like an insinuation, and Ingrid stiffened reflexively. Dorothea’s insinuations tended to be very… specific. Her blood began to pump hard in her veins, rumbling in her ears. “’So’, _what_?”

Dorothea tilted her head a little, hair swinging over her shoulder as she peered closely into her face. “Are we really going to go over this again? You _know_ ‘what’, Ingrid.”

Ingrid picked at her sleeve cuff, trying and failing to draw deep enough of a breath to clear her head. “There is nothing to say.” She turned to, and glared at, Dorothea. But she could not draw enough heat into the glare to make it truly formidable. “I don’t know what drew you to that conclusion in the first place.”

(She was increasingly fearful that she did know, after all.

 _I can’t—_ )

Dorothea rolled her eyes. “You keep saying that, Ingrid, and yet, you still keep looking at her _like that_. I don’t know what the problem is. She’s not with anyone, if that’s what you think. She and Hubie spend a lot of time together, sure, but trust me, whatever interest Hubie might or might not have is _strictly_ unrequited—and if he _is_ interested, he’s clearly not interested in doing anything about it.”

Ingrid took a moment to recover from the shock that Dorothea apparently felt perfectly alright calling Hubert ‘Hubie,’ and had not been struck down on the spot at the very moment the nickname passed her lips for what Hubert no doubt considered a great offense (Ingrid could not claim to know him very well, but he didn’t strike her as the sort who tolerated nicknames). The moment didn’t feel good, not exactly, but it certainly felt lighter than what followed after it.

Dorothea didn’t know _what the_ _problem was?_ Really? She couldn’t see that there was a problem? If Dorothea’s suppositions had been true, then it would have been deviance. Deviance, and impossible, besides. Ingrid could see nothing to it _but_ problems. If there was anything there. And there wasn’t.

_Are you so very sure of that?_

Ingrid’s blood was roaring in her ears, and she could have snapped at Dorothea in response. She almost did. Her temper was rearing up in her like an angry snake, hissing and spitting, fangs bared.

But she was not a snake. However weak she was, she was yet human and should behave like one. “There is nothing to say,” Ingrid repeated. “You’ve misjudged the situation completely.”

And Dorothea just rolled her eyes again. “If you say so. Me, personally? All I have to do is look at you to tell you’ve got it bad. You really should do something about that, Ingrid.”

She patted Ingrid’s shoulder, got up, and walked off towards the dormitories. The scent of her perfume lingered where she had sat for a moment, heavy and musky, before it, too, was speeding away, carried off by a stray gust of wind.

Ingrid dug her hands into her hair and let her head fall to her knees. Her heart throbbed in her throat, carrying inside of it a voice that screamed on and on for a release she would not grant it. Her eyes stung as if assaulted by smoke and steam and merciless dry heat. The wind howled over her bowed head in hollow tones of mockery.

-

Ingrid had accepted Seteth’s offer of knights to act as her guards when she made the journey home at the end of the school year. His was not the only offer she had accepted.

“I think,” Professor Melusine murmured, voice even despite the way her chest visibly heaved, “that this is enough for today. The hour grows late, and we both grow tired. We are more likely to inflict injuries without meaning to than you are to learn anything more.”

The Battle of the Eagle and Lion drew near, and there was little time during the day for extra training. On top of that, thanks to the proximity of a battle that pitted the three houses against each other, when Professor Melusine took on a series of tutoring sessions that involved her training a student outside of her own house, there had been whispers. Of _course_ there had been whispers. This was Garreg Mach, after all, where whispers flew like the wind and people gossiped about everything under the sun, in spite of the fact that they all had more than enough to keep them occupied without having to resort to gossip (Even Hilda, who made a lifestyle out of shirking every last bit of work assigned to her).

The content of the whispers was typical: the new professor was showing undue favor to a student outside of her own house, the new professor was conspiring with the Blue Lions to allow them to win over the house she herself had chosen to teach. It was all petty and sniping and Ingrid could only be grateful that Professor Melusine had chosen to serenely ignore it. As long as Professor Melusine treated it as being of no import, Ingrid could allow herself to treat it just the same.

(It stung, you know. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion no longer carried quite the importance it had to her before, but Ingrid had not entirely lost sight of its importance to the class, and the insinuation that she was part of a plot to unduly favor one house over the other two grated against her skin like a cilice. She had endured enough slings and blows in the recent past. She would appreciate not taking yet another blow, especially when it came from people who should have known better.)

Regardless of the whispers, they carried on these tutoring sessions without fail. Ingrid wasn’t going to let whispers stand between herself and what she could learn here.

And she wasn’t going to let the late hour or fatigue stand between her and it, either. “I can go on,” Ingrid insisted. “I’m not so tired as all that.”

Professor Melusine shook her head. “It is easy to underestimate how tired you are.” Her delicate mouth twisted in a grimace. “I have, often.”

“I’m not underestimating it,” Ingrid pressed on. Her grip tightened over the hilt of her wooden training sword. “I can go on, still.” The light that painted the skylights was a bloody red. “For another hour, at least.”

She would miss supper.

She didn’t care.

For a long moment, there was silence, and Ingrid began to fear that Professor Melusine would balk once more, and more firmly, this time. Professor Melusine’s gaze swept Ingrid up and down, which only intensified that fear. It was not a look that engendered optimism, that stare.

But after the moment had passed, Professor Melusine merely raised one eyebrow, and nodded. “Very well. One more technique.” Her expression darkened, but the moment of it was so fleeting that Ingrid would wonder later if she had imagined it. “I hope you will have no reason to use it.”

Ingrid expected Professor Melusine to brandish her training sword. But instead, she drew the dagger she ever wore at her belt, and beckoned for Ingrid to draw closer. “How much do you know of anatomy?” she asked softly.

“I…” Where was this going? “Not much.”

No disappointment. Not so much as a flicker of it in Professor Melusine’s steady gaze. “That is expected. Few know very much of anatomy, unless they make medicine or magical healing their trade. Before I arrived here, I knew a little of it from the books that I read, but there was little time for reading, and it was necessary to leave all books behind whenever we relocated.”

What would it have been like for Ingrid, if she had had to leave behind all of her books every few months (And possibly more frequently than that, during periods when mercenaries were in high demand)? She had spent much of her childhood reading and rereading her favorite books over and over again. If she had had to deal with them being regularly pried from her hands…

No, that was not what was important, here. She’d not spent her childhood like that, and more likely than not, she wouldn’t be spending her adulthood like that, either.

(Would she be spending her adulthood as a broodmare? Would she wind up married to another man who saw nothing in her but the prestige her blood could add to his bloodline, wind up impregnated over and over and over again like, indeed, a prized broodmare, until she could either bear no more children, or until she died? More likely than not, there would be no stain of overwhelming scandal that she could hold up as a reason not to accept him. What would she do?)

(What if she _did_ spend her adulthood in such a way as to be abandoning books? The specter of spending her life reduced to the function of a broodmare was depicted in stark, clearly visible lines, but this vision was indistinct, like a pillar of smoke against the night sky. Despite her weakness, she imagined herself a knight errant, forever on the move, forever seeking wrongs to right.

Oh, she was not certain now that she would ever be strong enough for such a life, but the idea of it still sang in her veins, like her blood had been replaced by the sweetest and the strongest of wines. Just that, when she imagined herself, she saw a faceless figure on a faceless pegasus, rather than anything that looked particularly like her.

Not as terrible as it could have been, that.)

Apparently oblivious to the paths Ingrid’s thoughts had dragged her down, Professor Melusine rested the flat of her dagger’s blade on her left palm, staring down at the polished steel, almost lost in thought, or so it seemed to Ingrid. “I have learned more since coming here. Manuela is an adept teacher, and I have profited much from her tutelage. I will pass on one of the lessons she has taught me to you. Come closer.”

When Ingrid stood maybe three feet from where Professor Melusine waited with her drawn dagger, this was apparently close enough for the professor’s satisfaction. “Watch where I place the dagger.”

Professor Melusine held her dagger close against a spot on her thigh, the edge of the blade pressed lightly against her trousers. Ingrid watched with bated breath. She did not need to hold the dagger in her hands to see that the blade was sharp enough to slice flesh even through sturdy wool. But Professor Melusine did not share Ingrid’s trepidation; her hand never so much as trembled. Oh, to be a seasoned warrior, so that she could demonstrate whatever Professor Melusine intended to demonstrate with so little hesitation or anxiety.

“There is an artery here,” Professor Melusine explained, in so soft a voice that Ingrid had to strain to listen. The bloody light pouring through the skylight stained the blade, making it appear as though the professor had cut into that artery already, though no blood poured from the phantom wound. “If you cut into it deeply enough when attacking another, they will die without proper attention.” She fixed Ingrid in a long, piercing stare. “There are few circumstances which would find you with the ability to easily put a dagger against this artery.”

Ingrid’s ears buzzed with tension, but she nodded. She could feel gratitude for this. She only wished that she could feel it more keenly.

Professor Melusine turned the hilt of the dagger to Ingrid, silent and watchful until Ingrid took the dagger from her hand. Then, she had Ingrid hold the dagger up against that same spot on her own thigh where the blood flowed fast and thick, had her practice the exact angle and cutting motion she would need to perform to sever the artery most efficiently, over and over again, until she was satisfied that Ingrid had absorbed the information fully into her mind.

The longer it went on, the more Ingrid’s head spun, the more her hand, so unlike Professor Melusine’s, trembled upon the hilt of the dagger. Oh, aye, there were few circumstances under which she would ever have the opportunity to perform a killing cut like this. There were few circumstances under which this would be her only recourse, if she _needed_ it. But she could see all of those circumstances playing out before her as though her attackers were right there with her.

-

And those images stayed with her for days, never fading or dulling or losing even one iota of their power to unsettle and unnerve. They just… They _stayed_. They clung to the fabric of her mind like burrs with a hundred thousand hooks, determined to dig their way deep into every last thread they could find. Ingrid could not begin to guess how to dislodge them. With actual burrs, she could at least seize onto the main body and yank it away. But these were intangible, and only mocked her efforts to remove them and find peace for herself.

Those around her must have realized what was going through her mind. Ingrid could think of no other explanation for why so many of her friends and casual acquaintances had stopped talking to her, and those who continued to speak with her did so with unbearable gentleness, aiming to avoid topics that could have been considered even remotely ‘upsetting.’

It was a trial to remain civil through it. It was a trial to grit her teeth and restrain the impulse to confront those who thought it better to coddle her than treat her as they had before. Ingrid might have been exposed to the depths of her own weakness, but she was strong enough not to need people to treat her as though she was made of the most brittle glass. Do not make her over into a lady in a tower; do not try to make her over into something truly made of glass. Do so, and you will find that glass is fragile, but can also cut.

If Ingrid found that the world had made her into glass, she thought she might shatter herself out of sheer, peevish spite, the better to let the shards of her broken body cut and scratch as many assailants as possible.

There was another side effect of this galling treatment: Marianne was actually speaking to her, _willingly._

Not that she was speaking to Ingrid very much, but still…

When Ingrid entered into the stables one balmy Saturday afternoon, she looked around, and sighed. There were all the horses and pegasi, and there was Marianne, but—

“Where’s Hilda?”

Marianne jumped a little, nearly dropping the bucket in her hands. But she assembled herself away from the quiver and steadied her hands on the handle of the bucket. “Oh, Ingrid. Hilda is…” She paused, searching valiantly for an explanation. But after a while, valiance must find its limits and meet its demise, and she squeezed her eyes shut and sighed quietly. “I haven’t seen her.”

Marianne hadn’t seen her. Now, why _was_ it that Ingrid was not at all surprised by that answer? Oh, yes, the presence of dirt, and animals who were not bathed and groomed to within an inch of their lives, and the specter of actual _labor_ to be carried out. That was why Ingrid was unsurprised by Hilda’s _mysterious_ absence.

Sometimes, Ingrid thought there must be more to Hilda than this. Sometimes, she thought there must be more to the girl than just a shirker who took perverse delight in talking everyone else into doing her work, took perverse delight in leaving everyone else to do what should have been the work of their group, plus one, and making everyone else’s lives a little more difficult in the process. There _must_ be more to Hilda than this. But Hilda so often got on Ingrid’s nerves (and she had gotten the impression that she was not Hilda’s favorite person, either—the way Hilda would start walking rapidly away whenever she saw Ingrid approach was the sort of thing that tended to prove meaningful) that if there was more to her than the lazy, heedless shirker, Ingrid was not interested in uncovering it. She was interested only in either getting Hilda to do her assigned work, or else getting to a point where she would not have to interact with Hilda anymore. If that made Ingrid uncharitable, then fine, she was uncharitable. She would wear the descriptor with pride.

“I’ll speak to Professor Manuela once we’re done,” Ingrid promised. “She will make sure that Hilda’s out here, next time.” If they could catch Professor Manuela when she was entirely sober, anyways—but since Flayn’s kidnapping and her own stabbing, Ingrid thought Professor Manuela had been drinking somewhat less than before, so perhaps she would be. “She can’t just _not do_ her chores.”

Perhaps in times past, Ingrid would have gone and confronted Hilda herself. She was itching to do just that right now, as she walked into the stables and picked up the hoof pick that had been waiting for her. But Ingrid’s temper had been uneven and frayed, of late. She found herself wanting to snap at absolutely nothing, on top of all the coddling that she _knew_ was not _meant_ to offend. On one or two occasions, she _had_ snapped, and sent her then-current conversation partner off in a huff.

No, her temper was not what it had been, and Ingrid suspected that if she confronted Hilda herself, she would say more than she had meant to. Every last uncharitable thought that had ever crossed her mind regarding the girl could well come pouring from her mouth like sewage, and once those words were said, she could never take them back.

Ingrid could never take back anything she said. Nor anything anyone else said to her. That was the most frightening thing about it.

So now, Ingrid would not be speaking to Hilda herself. But one way or another, she would make sure that the next time Hilda had chores in the stables, she would actually come here and do them, instead of just leaving her share of the work for whoever had been unfortunate enough to be assigned to do it alongside her. What did Hilda think, that being a noblewoman meant she could laze around all day?

No. Stop thinking about Hilda. She _really_ needed to stop thinking about Hilda, especially in context of Hilda being a hardened shirker. It was not going to do a thing for her temper.

Marianne didn’t bother murmuring assent or skepticism to that notion. Given that it was Hilda, who could occasionally—not often, but _occasionally_ —be motivated by sufficient amounts of guilt, not committing to either assent or skepticism was probably the smartest thing to do.

Given that the chances of Hilda showing up _today_ were slim to none, Ingrid and Marianne took up their tools, and Ingrid resigned herself to the longer amount of time she’d be spending in the stables than normal.

It wasn’t too much of a burden. Ingrid had never had any aversion to attending to the horses and pegasi in her proximity; if she was going to ride on them and fly on them, it was only fair that she attend to their needs as well, and ensure their hooves were clean, their manes brushed, their coats free of burrs or other pests. If anything, she found the process soothing, and though her parents had thought it beneath one of her station to be sitting on a stool in the stables digging rocks and debris out of a hoof, they had never outright forbidden it, considering instead the eventuality that she might one day be stranded on the road with no one else to…

Ingrid thought about her parents. She thought about them a little more, her father in particular. And then, very deliberately, she stopped.

She would just be attending to hooves and teeth, today. Marianne was a gentler hand with the brushes than Ingrid, and she didn’t have enough experience with hoof maintenance for Ingrid to feel comfortable letting her sit so close to those hooves, when she could be kicked clean off of her stool, and Ingrid no great shakes at medicine, besides. While Marianne fussed over Dorte, murmuring to the horse as if carrying on a conversation with a classmate, Ingrid examined a roan mare’s hooves, grimacing as she picked out bits of grit and stone.

There was… another reason why she was not quite as angry about having to spend a little while longer in the stables than usual, even if she was vexed by Hilda’s continued refusal to be anything resembling a reliable classmate. Even those students who were as good with horses or pegasi as Ingrid was did not come here on a daily basis (Most of them, anyways; Ingrid caught sight of Ferdinand and, yes, Marianne here nearly every time she happened to pass by). Here, they were unlikely to be too often disturbed, at least not by anyone who knew Ingrid by face, and thought they would be doing her a favor by subjecting her to condescending coddling. Here, she could clean horses and pegasi’s hooves in peace, losing herself in the work.

As much as Ingrid ever lost herself in work, these days.

The mounts in the monastery stables were, for all of Ingrid’s anxieties regarding Marianne, markedly sedate regarding people they barely knew taking quasi-sharp instruments to their sensitive hooves. Ingrid picked out stones, picked out bits of dry mud, occasionally picked out splinters of wood that she _knew_ must have been irritating the horse in question for the past several hours at least, if not a full day (She wasn’t certain exactly how often the horses and pegasi were groomed, when the task was not set to the students). She’d forgotten the work gloves she was supposed to wear, and by the time she’d gotten through three horses and one pegasus, there was so much dirt caked under her fingernails as to render them almost totally black.

It was soothing. She’d admit that. Her pulse had slowed since she had started doing this. But Ingrid could not entirely banish her troubled thoughts from her mind, and those faces that had come up in her mind’s eye during that last training session yet lurked at the periphery. She could still see them. She could practically smell their foul breath; she’d take a sweaty horse over that, any day.

_I must always have a horse or a pegasus, a creature who will suffer no rider but me, and will respond to any attempts to butcher them in their stalls with a fight. I must always have a means of escape._

Ingrid’s hands quivered a little as she held the hoof pick, and imagined it instead as a dagger with a wickedly sharp edge and a tip that gleamed like carven ice. Her hands quivered a little more when she imagined them slick with hot blood.

“I… Umm…”

In days past, Ingrid was uncertain that she would have heard Marianne at first. Marianne’s voice was very quiet at the best of times—honestly, Ingrid would have likened it to hearing someone speak at a normal volume from about thirty feet away—and when she did not speak at what for her passed as a normal volume, but instead chose to mutter, the average person would have needed an ear horn to accurately make out what she was saying if they did not happen to be standing right next to her (The ear horn might also be brought out if Marianne and her conversation partner happened to be standing in a room where there was any other noise at all).

But these were not days past. These past few days, Ingrid thought her hearing had been sharpening, or else, her mind had. Where her hearing might have before gone straight out of the window when she was lost in thought, now, she was ever aware of what went on around her. An unexpected noise far off in the distance could jar her into full alertness, heart racing as she stared wildly around her for the source. She caught herself listening to (eavesdropping on, if we are to be very honest) the conversations of people sitting down the dining table from her, trying to catch any hint of something that might pertain to her, something she might need to be worried about.

She was always worried these days, unless something else strong enough to vanquish worry reared up in its place. If that was the case, then Ingrid might as well listen to others’ conversations. If she wasn’t worried when she started listening, no doubt she would hear something that would leave her worried by the end of it.

Ingrid was considerably more aware of the soft sounds that filled the world around her, and thus, she could hear Marianne speaking when nearby, even when Marianne happened to be muttering. She set her hoof pick down, ran a gentle hand over the horse’s flank, and looked to where Marianne was standing over her latest horse. The comb in her hand hovered over the horse’s mane, its teeth never quite touching the hair.

When it seemed as if Marianne would say no more without prompting, Ingrid asked, “Yes?”

Marianne blinked rapidly, her mouth contorting in an expression of uncommon bitterness. But even that did not last long, her lips drooping in their familiar not-quite frown, only not quite because Ingrid thought it would have taken a bit more energy than all that to form a proper frown. “I… I’m not sure I should say it.”

Ingrid ran her fingernails down the handle of her hoof pick. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Whatever it is,” she said with a bitter smile, “I’m not so easily broken as everyone seems to think.”

To that, Marianne nodded, her unkempt hair brushing against her jaw. “I was just thinking,” she whispered. “Crests are a sign of the Goddess’s favor. Everyone says that if you bear a Crest, it is a sign that the Goddess favors you and your family.” Slowly, she ran her comb through the horse’s mane, so gently, pausing over a tangle and taking the time to work it loose with her bare hands. “But that’s only true of some Crests.” Her shoulders hunched. “There are some Crests that are hated, instead, and if you bear it, it’s said that the Goddess has cursed you.”

Ingrid frowned. Besides the fact that she had no real idea of just what had brought this on, she had never heard of a Crest that was hated, not the way that Marianne described. Even the Crest of Flames was not described in such terms—its original bearer might have been reviled, but the Crest itself was regarded as the stuff of legends, and when Professor Melusine was revealed to bear this Crest thought to be lost, the recovery of the greatest Crest of Fódlan’s heroes and villains had been considered by many as a cause for celebration. If Ingrid was an expert of Crestology, perhaps she would know of some obscure Crest that was, for whatever bizarre reason, considered a sign of the Goddess’s disfavor, but the concept was just too implausible for Ingrid to take entirely seriously.

_Then rest your mind in the realm of the implausible. The way Crests are made use of in this world, even that which is proclaimed by all to be a sign of the Goddess’s favor can become a curse._

_It all depends on how those with power over you see fit to treat you._

“I… have never heard of such Crests,” Ingrid admitted, because it seemed the thing to say. And also because there could be priests or knights listening to them, ready to report anything they said to Seteth or to Lady Rhea. A reminder was needed, perhaps. “Everything I have ever heard says that all Crests are blessings from the Goddess.”

_Has your Crest felt like a blessing to you, of late?_

Marianne squeezed her eyes shut in an almost alarmingly pained expression. “I wish…” She rested her free hand against the horse’s flank; it whinnied softly, but made no effort to move away from her. “I wish I could believe that. But I know better. There are some Crests that it would be better for everyone if they simply vanished from the world, along with all of their bearers.” She tilted her head downwards, eyes still screwed shut. “I think that would be for the best.”

To that, Ingrid had no reply. As far as she knew, Marianne bore no Crest—at least, it had never come up in Ingrid’s hearing that she _did_ bear one. She could not guess where exactly these thoughts came from, was not certain she wished to know. (Perhaps, later, she would ask. Marianne’s voice was as soft and quiet as it ever was, but the sheer intensity with which she had spoken suggested personal experience of some sort. It was suggestive, and to Ingrid, it was worrying, even past the baseline miasma of worry that was her daily life forever, these days.)

Since she could not think of anything to say, Ingrid stared down at the hoof pick in her hands, trying not to imagine it as a dagger.

At last, Marianne opened her eyes. She blinked against the lantern light that lit the stables as if trying to stare into the sun itself. “And even when someone bears a Crest that really is supposed to be a blessing from the Goddess, it can become a curse all its own.”

As those words dripped from Marianne’s lips like hot tears, Ingrid felt cold in a way that reached more deeply than the weather was capable of. As when she interacted with Mercedes, not long after she returned from home, she wondered wildly if someone had let something slip to her, if Marianne knew more than she should have. Marianne didn’t strike her as being a close confidante of _any_ of the Black Eagles—Linhardt was the only one of them she seemed to talk with regularly—but it did fit, did it not? Marianne was so quiet, and so unassuming. She was exactly the sort of person other people would assume could keep a secret.

But as Ingrid scoured Marianne’s face for any sign of that particular, terrible truth, she could not see it in her skin. She let some tension out of her shoulders, reluctantly, ready to grasp at it again if need be. Perhaps it was just a coincidence.

Well aware of everyone who could be listening outside, well aware of what they could choose to carry back to those they answered to, Ingrid murmured hollowly, “Even if the responsibilities placed on Crest-bearers are heavy, they remain a blessing from the Goddess.”

-

But she did not really believe that, did she? In her heart, Ingrid thought that she had stopped believing it long ago. It had only taken her this long for her mind to accept what her heart already knew.

When had it been that she had stopped truly believing her Crest to be a blessing from the Goddess? Ingrid could not say. She had parroted the words she had been taught for so long without believing them in her heart that she could not say for certain _when_ it had become simple parroting.

They had always told her that her Crest was a blessing received directly from the Goddess. Not just her parents, or her grandmother, or her brothers, but _everyone_. Every priest who ever led a church service, every commoner Ingrid had ever encountered on the road or in town that girded the keep, every knight and mercenary, would have told her that her Crest was lucky, that she should be grateful to have one. The priests would indeed have said that her Crest was a blessing from the Goddess and a sign of her favor. The commoners would have told Ingrid that her Crest was the mark of her (comparative) great wealth and prosperity (though she certainly did not _feel_ very wealthy or prosperous), and that her Crest was a means by which she could achieve yet greater wealth and prosperity than what she already enjoyed. The knights and mercenaries would have bade her to take pride in the gifts her Crest provided her in battle, and would have spoken in awe and envy of the weapon Ingrid’s Crest enabled her to safely wield.

Lúin…

Ingrid was sitting at her desk, her candle burning low, its one pulsing beam of light unequal to the task of beating back the darkness that poured through her window. Shadows pooled at her feet like lapping waves, and it crept up the shaft of the lance propped up in the far corner of her room like a veil with a will all its own.

Ingrid had nowhere else to keep the lance. There were no hooks on the walls she could have hung it from, and stowing it under her bed felt, for all that the lance still felt like it was just a lance, mildly sacrilegious. The idea of taking it to the armory for safekeeping had been swiftly discarded—Ingrid might not be able to make her mind grasp Lúin’s full import, but she had no desire to hand its care over to strangers, both for their own safety, and her own peace of mind (Having such a powerful weapon so close at hand in her room held an undeniable appeal).

Truth be told, Ingrid was not certain that any of the higher-ranking officials within the Church were aware that she had Lúin with her. There had been no room inspections since Flayn was rescued—there had been no room inspections before Flayn was abducted—and no one had called her in to speak about it. So long as it remained in her room, it was possible that the Church would never know that one of the students at the Officers Academy this year had a Hero’s Relic in her dormitory room. So much the better; the fewer people knew about it, the more of a surprise it would be, if a surprise was what Ingrid would need.

Secrecy was soothing. There was a sense of wrongness to it, as well, but it was soothing to know that she had such a secret. If Ingrid was accosted in this very room, her attackers would soon regret their mistake. Sorely.

_And here, I behave like a snake once more. I lie in the grass, letting the unsuspecting think that I am a fallen branch, or else letting them be utterly unwary of my presence. I lie in the grass until some unlucky traveler draws too close, and then I bare my fangs and strike._

That was not fair, or so Ingrid tried to tell herself. She was not seeking out victims as a heartless killer would. The lance was insurance against anyone who would violate the sanctity of this private space, not a weapon of murder against the innocent and the unwary.

So she tried to tell herself. She told herself that, again and again, as her mind sunk deeper and deeper into the gloom that swam and swirled in her room. She could tell herself that as often as she liked, and it would not make this feel any less like the cruelty of an animal that often killed for no reason that Ingrid could discern. Perhaps she would wake the next morning and find her arms and legs gone, her skin replaced with shiny scales, her tongue forked, and her mind cold. Perhaps, one day, she would become a snake in truth.

If that could excise the turmoil in her mind, perhaps it would not be so bad. If that could keep her from becoming the doll or shapeless object others sought to make of her, perhaps it would not be so bad.

But no, that was not for her. If her mind was to become the mind of an animal’s, her body must remain human. She must yet have this much, at least.

She must yet retain hands to hold Lúin with. But Lúin, oh, Lúin, it was many things to her.

A weapon, certainly. A weapon of great power, something she could use to protect herself if ever someone attempted to abduct her from this room ( _And what will I do if someone comes for me outside of this room? What will I do if they come with force of arms? What will I do if they come with draughts to put me in a stupor? What will I do if they come with honeyed, lying tongues? What then?!_ ). A weapon she might bear in battle one day, but unless the course of her life changed drastically in ways that were yet unknown to her, she would never have the chance to wield it, and would have to settle for giving it to her oldest son who bore a Crest.

The lance was a weapon, but the feeling inspired by having it in her possession was not one of freedom.

_What did he say? That the lance would be put to better use protecting his daughter than gathering dust in a house where no one could safely use it?_

_What did he say? That the birth of a daughter with a Crest was the greatest blessing his house could have received?_

But that was just it, wasn’t it? He had said it himself, and Ingrid could derive meanings from it that he had likely hoped she never would. Ingrid’s Crest _was_ a blessing. It was not a blessing for _her_. It was a blessing for everyone who could profit off of her, and Ingrid was, at best, a vehicle for the advancement of others. She would never experience the full benefit. At best, she would be left at the door, able to feel the warmth of the room inside, but never quite making it into the room itself.

And Lúin was the symbol of all of that. It had not been given to her in recognition of her abilities, and Ingrid now found her possession of the lance a poisoned chalice. When the Crest stone lit up when the lance was held in her hands, it reminded the world that she was something that could be exploited for the gain of others. Where they should have seen a warrior with a weapon of terrifying power at her disposal, a force to be reckoned with, they instead saw a resource they longed to milk for all it was worth.

It was not a tool to grant its wielder freedom. Perhaps Daphnel had known freedom when he wielded Lúin in the Goddess’s service, but everyone who had come after him, his children, his grandchildren, all the way down to Ingrid herself, had only had Lúin to mark them out as a symbol of what they were, a symbol of all that could be gained for whoever was able to exploit them first.

_The Crest was the blessing. Not me._

-

The next morning, an envelope was pressed into Ingrid’s hand over breakfast.

“Ingrid?” Mercedes asked, concerned, as she paused at the door of their classroom. “What are you doing?”

Ingrid watched the fire in the hearth, engrossed. The edges of the envelope slowly turned up and turned black—the fire had been allowed to burn low, perhaps lower than it should have been. The seal was beginning to bubble and boil, the shape embossed in the wax vanishing into the angry red. She imagined ink smoking or perhaps running down past the charred logs, the death of words she would never read. Ingrid prodded the fire with a poker, sending sparks shooting into the air. “Just getting rid of some trash,” Ingrid told her absently, and let the fire have its due.

-

Ingrid could let the fire have its due, but she could not change the truth of her body.

If she could have poured out all of her blood and exchanged it with someone who bore no Crest, someone who could go through life without the weight of every responsibility, every duty, every obligation, every invisible chain that accompanied her Crest, Ingrid had no idea if she would do it. Maybe she wouldn’t, or maybe she would. Maybe she would seize the opportunity with both hands. The ambiguity and her uncertainty tore at her like the talons of a ravenous hawk, prying at every weak spot it could find.

It did not matter. She could not change her body. She carried the blood inside of her, what ought to be a blessing but instead felt like a stigma, something that would forever make her a target for the manipulations of others. She could not be rid of it. Her withered corpse would be rid of it, someday, when she had lied so long in her sarcophagus that her blood had vanished from the world, but her living body would carry its burden until the day her soul departed the earth. She would carry her burdens until the day she died.

As long as Ingrid lived, she would bear the burdens of her blood and her Crest and all that came with it, forever fearing the intentions of every man who meant to become her husband. As long as she lived, she would try to navigate her obligations while finding them crushing all of her dreams beneath their uncaring feet. As long as she lived, she would live with the bitter knowledge of her weakness coating her tongue with its poison.

And as long as Ingrid lived, she would live with the knowledge of her own deviance.

_I’m not supposed to want this, I’m not supposed to want anything like this, not supposed to feel things like this, not supposed to want anyone but my husband, and I don’t have a husband and this isn’t a man and I_

In the dark of the night, Ingrid’s thoughts kept drifting. They kept on drifting, drifting, drifting down the hall, up those steps and into a room that she now found herself openly longing to know better than her fleeting time spent there had allowed. They kept drifting to sunlight flashing on silver hair, and no longer because she wondered what had made it silver when it should have been brown, but because of a fascination that she could no longer deny.

_This is wrong I’m wrong I should not be thinking these things I should not be feeling these things why am I feeling these things why why_

When she thought of scarred skin, she thought of the way the ridges would feel under her fingertips. When she thought of a deep, rich voice, she wondered how it would sound muffled against her own skin.

She should not—

Ingrid could not begin to name all of the things she _should not_. All of this was wrong, all of it. What should have been simple, innocent admiration had turned to something else, something so, _so_ …

Ailell took more from her than her strength, or her dignity. It had taken away her ability to lie to herself.

The most horrible thing about it all was that, as best as Ingrid could tell, there was no reason why Edelgard should not have realized it already. All illusions had been stripped from her mind, all pretenses of walls knocked down. The bricks were shattered, the ivy burned to bits, and there was no buffer between Ingrid and the screaming chaos of every last thought she had ever shoved into the back of her mind.

It must be obvious to everyone else. They must speak of it where she could not hear. Were they disgusted by her? Did they laugh at the aberrance of her thoughts and desires? Or did they only dispassionately judge?

She hated, she resented.

She dreamt, she wept.

She longed for, she lusted after, or so it felt to Ingrid, something so base and so filthy that it befouled every fiber of her mind that it touched, no matter how light and how fleeting the touch might be.

Women did not do such things with women. Men were not supposed to do such things with men, but war was war and men who spent months and years with no one but other men for company should not be expected to go without for all that time. A woman was for her husband alone, to bear his children and warm his bed and to never, _ever_ pursue any desires that could put his bloodline at risk, or even breathe a shadow of doubt upon it.

The more she thought about it, the more her stomach churned. The more harshly her stomach churned, the more she thought about it.

An emperor must have heirs. Edelgard would have a husband, and though Ingrid had no idea what sort of wedding vows emperors were supposed to swear when they were so far above every man they could ever have wed, Edelgard would no doubt eschew the opportunity to seek comfort outside of the bed she shared with her husband. Ingrid could not imagine a woman like her ever bending her morals enough to betray whatever vows she might swear to her husband to go seeking comfort in the arms of another.

Here she was, pining after a woman who no doubt would never have even considered the idea of her as anything but an associate. Oh, what a mind Ingrid had, to go seeking after knighthood with all that that implied—men who were knights often fell in love with the ladies of the castles they served in, or at least played at being in love with them. But they were _men_. That was natural for them. This was not natural at all, not something that should ever have taken root inside of her, and yet, there it was, deep-rooted and baleful and mocking.

Ingrid flinched in bed, tucking her knees ever closer to her chest. The sheets were kicked to the foot of the bed, and despite the slight chill in the air, her skin was hot, nervous, sour sweat dripping from her brow onto the pillow shoved beneath her head.

She would never be happy as a man’s wife. She knew that now, and she folded in on herself even further, her back quivering from the strain of holding her body in such a harsh position (The pain felt right, as nothing else had for days now). She would never be happy as a man’s wife, and yet she could see no other way. Whether or not she would be happy as a man’s wife, that was where she would find herself within a few years. What she wanted, what made her happy, mattered so little to those with the power to decide her fate that her wants and her happiness would be trampled beneath their feet with them utterly oblivious to what they had done, and her with no power to protest it.

It wasn’t about what she wanted.

It especially wasn’t about what she wanted, when what she wanted wasn’t natural.

And yet, she wanted still. Ingrid had been wrong earlier. _This_ was the most terrible thing of all. She should want nothing. She wanted, still.

In the dark of the night, she was invisible to all who could have jeered at her. She was naked in the face of everything she should not want, naked in the face of the whisper that told her that this would be what broke her world, now and forever: no matter how good a man was, no matter how upright, no matter how honorable, she would never be happy as his wife, and she would spend the rest of her days in the gray haze of loveless duty, making dismal the life of a man who deserved a wife who should be able to give him something, _anything_ of herself besides the use of her flesh.

She could not change it. It was, on top of everything else, just too much. She could only close her mouth around it, and give it no voice that must burden others with the hearing of it.

Ingrid screwed her eyes shut, and tried to sleep. Just as disgusted with her as she was with herself, sleep was slow in coming.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : blood; suffocation imagery; self-image issues; internalized homophobia; body horror imagery; internalized misogyny; cannibalism imagery; disturbing imagery, in general]

When Ingrid first began attending the Officers Academy, she had supposed that as the time for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion drew nearer, every fiber in her body would buzz with anticipation. She had innocently supposed that the Battle of the Eagle and Lion would be the highlight of the year, easily the most interesting or memorable thing that would happen to her all the year long, and that the rest of it would be rather mundane by comparison. Boring, even.

After all, when she had contacted her cousin for advice on what to expect when attending the Officers Academy, that was very much the impression she had gotten from the letter she received. Lord Rodrigue had spoken of it with her father at times when she was very young, as well, and he had made his time in Garreg Mach as a student sound positively idyllic.

‘Idyllic’ was not how Ingrid would have described her school year. To say the least. Even if the turmoil had not taken root inside of her own body, she did not think she would have been able to give all of her attention to the fast-approaching mock battle. After everything that had happened, the battle she had so been looking forward to just a few months ago had rather lost its appeal.

And certain things that had happened already were _still_ happening, too. Just when the furor regarding the massacre of the Western Church had been starting to die down, a new rumor took flight within the walls of Garreg Mach: some of the survivors had taken over that holy site on the sunbaked shores of the Rhodos Coast, so close to where Ingrid had learned to swim. The muttering had started again, the whispers had started again, the guards were tense and irritable again, and Ashe had taken up his old spot in the cathedral again. May this all be over quickly, Ingrid told herself.

May this all be over quickly.

So yes, the Battle of the Eagle and Lion had lost a lot of its former luster.

 _What is the point of performing well in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion if no lord who looks for that feather in the cap of potential knights will_ ever _accept me as one of their knights? What is the use of it, if they will only ever see me as a potential bride for them, or a potential bride for their son?_

And she knew where the answer lied: in her classmates, who very much wished to do well in the battle, regardless of whether or not they would be able to parlay their success into their futures. Dimitri must be king. Mercedes and Annette must marry (the former thanks to her current guardian’s selfish, _selfish_ desires, and the latter on account of her station in life) and more likely than not, the only way either Ashe or Dedue would _ever_ become knights (if that was even what Dedue wanted) would be if they were knighted by Dimitri himself. Sylvain must be Margrave Gautier and take up the Lance of Ruin, no matter how little he seemed to relish the idea ( _And what might the accursed lance do? What will Sreng do?_ ). Felix must become Duke Fraldarius and take up the Aegis Shield, for all that he held his father, the current Duke Fraldarius, in quiet contempt, and held the entire concept of chivalry in rather louder contempt.

They were all bound by such cruelly tight strictures, and yet, Ingrid seemed to be the only one who chafed against them badly enough for it to sap her of the joy she could take in the upcoming battle. There was something wrong with her, but then, she already knew that.

There was something wrong with her.

Ingrid would stare down at the honey-hued shaft of her training lance and imagine it gory with rivulets of blood and scraps of pink flesh.

There was something wrong with her.

A sudden shout was enough to send her reeling, though there was no danger to be had.

There was something wrong with her.

Flashes of silver-white out of the corner of her eye made her blood quicken with desire, be the source of the flash sunlight shimmering on water, candlelight glinting on silver jewelry, or, yes, glistening silver-white hair that was always brushed to a smooth, rippling luster. Shame roared up on desire’s heels, and Dorothea’s gentle laughter rang in Ingrid’s ears, sweet and melodious and mocking.

There was something wrong with her.

No matter how she tried, Ingrid could not dig those desires out of her body, and could not remove the unwanted and the unnatural from what was right and good and accepted.

There was something wrong with her, and those things were knotted so tightly together that Ingrid could not hope to untangle them all. She could picture the massive, lumpen knot in her mind’s eye, watching with mounting dread as it grew with every last flinch, every last starburst of anger that she had swallowed down upon and then felt cutting her throat like broken glass, every last spark of unbidden desire. Her hands could not tease the cords away from each other. A sword of high-grade steel, sharpened on a whetstone for hours, could have cut through it.

And she could just imagine that moment of severance, too. In her mind’s eye, blood would pour from the cords, pooling on whatever shadowy floor the knot had sat on. Blood would pour and pour and pour, the air heavy with the tang of copper, and when the cords were empty, so too would she be, for the knot had been her heart, as tangled and misshapen as it might have been.

The knot was her. She could not destroy it without destroying herself.

And when she was destroyed, when the knot that was her heart was hacked to pieces on the floor, what would be left? What would rise up to take her place?

Sometimes, Ingrid thought she would not recognize it. Sometimes, she thought it would be the most recognizable she had ever been.

-

During the day, Ingrid was not alright, and was now incapable of lying to herself and pretending that everything was as it should be. During the day, her mind was as naked as it ever was these days, and she _knew_ that people could tell what thoughts raced sickeningly fast through her mind, _knew_ they knew of every aberrant want and fear that stained the surface of her mind, and forbore to speak of it for some unknown reason. But she could push past it enough to attend class, do her assignments, attend sparring sessions in the training ground. She could push past it enough to go through the mechanical motions of her life.

In the blind dark, things were different. Things she saw behind her mind’s eye, intangible images that shined through when the sun hit them, for all that they were so terribly vivid, when night fell, they suffused her consciousness, suffused the world and her senses alike, becoming as real as anything Ingrid knew in the waking world. Ingrid could not say whether she was sleeping or awake; it was all the same to her. In the blind dark, the walls between wake and sleep dissolved like wet sand in her hands.

She saw such things in the dark. Oh, she saw such things. She understood at last what demons prowled the sleep of so many of her classmates, what drove them to wake in a sweat, in a panting panic, in screams that flooded the hall with their dissonance.

She saw such things in the dark.

Were it not for the fact that she would need them once the sun returned to her, Ingrid would gladly have plucked out her eyes, if it could mean never seeing them again.

Leering faces glared at her out of the dark. This was the most harmless of the apparitions, and thus, they tended to appear first, and quickly gave way to what came after, once the mind was settled into its visions. But at the first, they were unsettling enough—faces that appeared human at first, human faces with ravenous eyes, bared teeth, and slavering jaws, before they twisted and distorted, swirling like the reflections of faces in churning water. (No truth to be found here, no true reflection of anyone or anything here.) But their eyes stayed just the same no matter what became of the rest of their faces, and those eyes stayed always fixed upon Ingrid, boring into her like they were starving, and she was something they could eat.

(Sometimes, Ingrid wondered what it would be like to be eaten. She wondered what it would be like to be consumed, every part of herself vanishing from the world as it was absorbed into the bodies of others, giving them strength even as she herself diminished down to nothing.

She held in her mind an image of herself, dead: pale and cold and stiff. She was totally naked, lying on a bare wooden table, her head and arms and legs and genitals shaved—no one wants hair in their food, after all. Whole, for now, but that did not last long.

Men in butcher’s aprons, bearing butcher’s knives and meat cleavers alike, came into the room. They had no faces, these men; where faces should have been, there was smooth, unbroken skin of all hues. With the neat, precise detachment with which a butcher would have cut up a cow, they cut her body into parts. Her intestines were pulled from her abdomen and tossed carelessly onto the floor. Eyes and tongue were carefully, delicately removed from her head, her skull sawed open and the brain retrieved. These four were set on a pan, while the rest of her ruined head was tossed to the ground with the viscera. Ingrid stared at her own empty eye sockets, a feeling too empty to be nausea churning in her belly.

Hands and feet were discarded alongside the viscera and the ruined remains of Ingrid’s head. The prime cuts of meat were set aside with the eyes, tongue, and brain (delicacies, apparently)—the meat on the thighs and buttocks was cut with especial care. Separated from the body they had come from, all parts but the eyes looked as if they had come from a pig; the skin, especially, was disturbingly similar in appearance to that of a live pig. Only the eyes, green and glassy and still so vivid despite their lifelessness, told the truth of where all this fresh meat had come from. And doubtless the eyes would not be served up to just any paying customer. No, whoever swallowed Ingrid’s sight would have to pay a fat sum of gold for the privilege. She could only imagine what fortune would be paid by the diner lucky enough to devour her voice.

Then, the cuts of meat that had once been Ingrid were taken away, through a door that shot up out of the shadows that clamored at the edge of the room. Ingrid could not see clearly any of the features of the room the men disappeared to, but the livid light of a fire surged up, furious and ravenous, and the smell of cooking meat, mouth-watering and nauseating, made Ingrid’s mouth water and her face break out in a cold sweat, as the door was slammed shut, and the firelight was bound away from her sight.

Even if the final part of the process was invisible to her, Ingrid knew precisely how it would end. She would be cut down to nothing, while everyone else benefited from her destruction. It would be a union from which she could never escape.)

Unsettling as those disembodied, distorted faces were, they were nothing compared to what came after them. When they scattered into the oblivion of impenetrable night, what took their place bore no resemblance whatsoever to humankind, for all that they might wear the mockery of human faces.

She would be in bed, paralyzed, as the apparitions crawled over her, feet pattering over her legs, her belly and her chest, hands crawling over prone and immobile flesh.

The faces changed. Not the changing of the disembodied apparitions she saw at the start, not the twisting, the rippling of reflections distorted by churning water. No, they just flickered into new forms, like someone was pulling off one grotesque phantom porcelain mask, more a caricature of a face than an actual face, really, just to reveal another caricature-mask underneath. On and on the faces spun, dizzyingly fast, and Ingrid felt as if her face was changing, too.

Where had that last notion come from, anyways? There was no mirror held up before Ingrid’s eyes, no pool of clear, unruffled water set up for her to gaze into. If her face was changing, there was no way for her to _know_. But she felt unstable, unmoored, even when she was pinned down on her back on the bed by unseen hands. She felt as amorphous and as weakly tied-together as a bead of water quivering on a leaf, ready to split into a thousand pieces the moment the leaf was even gently jostled. When she split apart, another woman would rise up out of her peeled-back skin, to take her place on the bed. (Another woman would bear her burdens for her. Perhaps, for someone else, that would have been comforting. It was not comforting for Ingrid. It was not comforting at all.) Another woman would take her place, and it would all start again—as long as she had the desired characteristics, it would not matter to the men that the woman they— It would not matter that the woman was different. Why should it matter to them at all?

It was happening again tonight. One sat crouched on her chest, chin and hands propped on his knees, ever-changing face retaining its leer, no matter the mask he wore. He was about the size of a large cat, and yet sat so heavy on Ingrid’s chest that she could not lift herself even half an inch off the bed. If someone had set a granite gargoyle down on her chest, this strange, horrible little man would not have been any heavier.

 _I need— I need—_ The weight made it hard to think. The weight made it hard to focus on anything but the weight. _I need—_

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Ingrid pieced her thoughts together. However heavy he was, she needed to get up. She _needed_ to get up. She was trapped, trapped, trapped, a caged thing battering against the bars of her cage. If she did not find a way out of the cage, if she did not get up—

She couldn’t see the others. The blind dark had swallowed up everything past the man who crouched on her chest, sheltering his companions, but Ingrid did not need to see them to know that they were there. They walked over the planes of her flesh, on bare feet rough with calluses and the abuses of long lives that come to us regardless of our station—scars and corns and jagged chunks of missing flesh. Sometimes, Ingrid could almost fancy that it was stone that she felt dragging across her legs and her abdomen, the touch of their feet were so rough.

Their hands, though, the touch of their hands she could only mistake as anything but flesh. Stone did not have blood, unfeeling stone did not have blood that coursed ever on and on beneath its surface. Stone did not have blood, and she could feel the blood pulsing beneath the skin of their hands as they touched her.

It would have been better if they were cold.

It would have been so much better if they were cold.

If the hands were cold, perhaps Ingrid could have believed them to be the hands of corpses, or some sort of monsters. But when the apparitions came, in that place of unyielding darkness where wakefulness and dreams were as one, the hands were warm, and she could not take them for anything but the hands of living men. They were too ordinary to be anything else.

No, their hands were not cold. The fingers that brushed against her ankles, trailing up her legs, their touch growing harsher and more demanding the higher they went, they were warm. It was— It was so— The only proof Ingrid had that this was indeed a dream was that the rough, groping hands left no bruises on her skin. Drifting between wakefulness and sleep, that was the only proof she had that this was not really happening, the only thing she could carry into the realm of sunlight that kept her coming undone in entirety.

Whether waking or sleeping, dreaming or hallucinating, oh, it did not matter to her mind or her body. Whether waking or sleeping, the pulsing panic and skulking shame that ruled her were all-consuming.

 _I have to get up_.

Sweat ran down Ingrid’s face in beads, the salt-sour smell reeking in her nostrils.

_I have to get—_

She squirmed in her bed, trying desperately to pitch the little crouching man from her chest. He was utterly unmoved, not so much as a flinch, and all the while, his face changed, the kaleidoscopic swirl of his eyes making Ingrid sick to her stomach. He was unmoved and unmovable, as steady and sturdy as one of the pillars of the earth, and here was Ingrid, just one girl, trapped beneath his terrible weight.

Her chest constricted painfully as she struggled to get out so much as a single deep breath. The weight on her chest grew heavier and heavier, driving her ever deeper into her mattress, and air could not seem to find its way into her lungs. Driven by dread and by a small spark of anger that nevertheless refused to die, Ingrid struggled, heaving and squirming and writhing on the bed.

All to no avail.

The man on her chest was silent, leering down at her out of his catalogue of stolen faces and taking no heed of her struggles. Some of the faces he showed to Ingrid looked familiar, so familiar, but try as she might, she could not put a name to them, and that was not where the majority of her efforts went, anyways.

The struggle went on, as it did nearly every night (How Ingrid had come to dread the setting of the sun). Ingrid could not remember even one occasion on which she had won—she knew only that when the first rays of sunlight peeked over the forbidding jaws of the mountains, she would be awake in her bed, flat on her back and drenched in sweat, the sweat so copious and so sour with her fear that she would need another bath, less than twelve hours after her last one.

As she grappled with her burdens, light flared on the horizon. But it was not the sun.

The sun did not flicker so much as this.

Ingrid’s thrashing increased in violence as the light grew, a hellish orange that rippled across her bedroom walls like fiery fronds of kelp, if that kelp had also somehow been on fire. The light grew in intensity and heightened towards the ceiling, bathing everything in the room in that same hellish orange glow. The brighter it became, the more intense, the more it seared Ingrid’s eyes and prickled at her eyelids. Despite the onset of winter, the room was filling with a dry, merciless heat, made bitter with a reek of acrid smoke that carried an undertone of something that Ingrid did not recognize at first.

It was only natural that she did not recognize it. After all, she had smelled it so rarely; why should she immediately recognize it for what it was?

It was only natural that she did not recognize it for what it was.

That did not make the moment of recognition any less terrifying.

Because even if Ingrid had had little experience of that smell, she was not so muddled by the maybe-interstice between wakefulness and sleep as to never recognize it for what it was.

Sulfur.

Ingrid gagged on the thick smoke, her eyes streaming with tears that choked her mouth like the bitter waters of the sea. She was trying to breathe, trying to breathe, trying to breathe in as much of the air as she could, but all the air she could find was choking like she was choking, and she could not find air that did not sear her throat, did not sear what little of her lungs it could reach, did not dizzy her mind and dull her sight. There was only this. There would only be this.

The bed was burning. Ingrid could see none of it, but she could feel tongues of flame licking her skin, more loathsome and more terrifying than those hands. (She could still feel those hands roaming across her skin. Not a flinch, not a tremor, not so much as the slightest sign that they were at all affected by the fires that must even now consume them.) The bed was burning, and Ingrid would be consumed here, too weighed down to move, too choked to scream, voiceless and motionless, for Ailell had come for her. The Goddess had come to rain down wrath upon her for rejecting one of her greatest gifts to wicked mankind, come to rain down wrath upon one who would have loved nothing more than to spill the poisoned chalice, if only she could find the hands to do it, for the Goddess’s patience had limits, the Goddess did not suffer rejection, the Goddess bathed all apostates in cleansing, obliterating fire, and now Ingrid would—

Ingrid woke to the blind dark of moonless, cloud-choked night, cold, her bedsheets kicked down to the foot of the bed, alone, unburned, untouched, her face awash with tears and her throat utterly raw.

For a moment, a long, horrible moment, she yet found herself unable to move, pinned down to the bed this time by forces completely invisible. She gasped for air, each breath she took unobstructed but agonizing, spikes of pain stabbing her chest with each new lungful of air, but then, whatever it was that pinned her to the bed vanished, and she shot up, sobbing hysterically, uncaring of how her voice must carry, for it was such a relief to be able to breathe unimpeded, such a relief to be able to sit upright and sob without caricatures of faces leering at her, mocking her weakness and exploiting it with zeal.

Ingrid sank against the wall, cradling her face in her hands, her head thumping against the stone with a dull thud and a throbbing pain that would have been an annoyance had it not been such a relief to feel something that was grounded in the real world. She made a few gasping, gulping essays at stopping her tears and her sobs, but they just kept coming, streaming down her face and pooling in her shaking hands, they just kept coming, jarring from her mouth after racing up her throat like the spouts of steam that had spewed upwards from the cracked ground of Ailell.

And more likely than not, it would all be the same tomorrow night. The visions would return, dreams certainly but nothing she could pin to wakefulness or sleep with any certainty, her fear would grip her in iron claws and she would lie there in helpless terror, ripe for assault with visions of leering faces and groping, demanding hands. Too weak to fight against it, too weak to prevail, too weak to even move. Just a lady in a tower, waiting for the sun to come to break the spell.

Ingrid sat on her bed and cried.

The world had shrunk down to the shadowed confines of her room, everything beyond it past Ingrid’s ability to comprehend or care. Her shoulders heaved as she tried to suck in deep, even breaths, tried to stop crying long enough to just _breathe_. It became marginally easier as the dark, lonely minutes dragged on, but _nothing_ , absolutely _nothing_ could prevail against the overwhelming feeling of isolation, of being trapped. This was a bedroom and not a cage, a bedroom and not a tomb, but when she looked at where she knew the door must be, she could not conceive that the door would give way under her hand. She could not imagine that the door would give way at all.

If every night from now on was to be like this, or if even most nights from now on were to be like this, Ingrid could not see how she was to bear it. She could not see how she was to keep her heart and her mind if this was to be her reality, nearly every night. She could not see how she was to remain herself, if every night she became prey to these spectral _things_.

But she wasn’t herself even now, was she? She hadn’t been herself for a while, hadn’t been herself since she was in a room in an inn in Aidunn, staring down at dispassionate ledger entries detailing the ruination of so many innocent people’s lives. ( _Are they still there? Do they labor as prisoners even now?_ ) Or maybe she hadn’t been herself since Glenn died. Or maybe she had never been herself, and the notions she had thought made up herself as a person were only ever just that, notions. A reflection with nothing of substance on the other side of it.

A fresh sob bubbled up from Ingrid’s throat, hot and harsh and jagged. She pressed her cheek against the rough stone of the wall, its dips and peaks impressing themselves into her skin, its chill seeping down her face into the rest of her body. If she wasn’t herself, who was she? Who was she supposed to be, if she wasn’t herself?

In the morning, when the sun lit up the segmented panes of her windows, perhaps she would feel different. Perhaps she would find that sense of herself once more when the sunlight warmed her skin. But she would leave this place eventually, and go into a world where nearly everyone, if _not_ everyone, would wish to mold her into a specific image, something that suited their needs and their desires, regardless of what she wanted or needed. There would be no chance to forge anything that was uniquely her. She would be her parents’ obedient daughter, then an as-yet unknown man’s obedient wife, then her children’s virtuous mother, then perhaps, if she was very lucky, her grandchildren’s virtuous grandmother, and then she would be dead, unable to forge any sense of herself, and powerless to prevent posterity from writing over her with a false narrative of who and what she had been, if posterity would spare any attention for her at all.

Ingrid could imagine a future like that. It would be like trying to force her body through an iron grille with bars set mere inches apart from each other. It would be like trying to walk with no feet. It would be like trying to speak with a mangled tongue and half of her teeth knocked out of her mouth.

She could live a life like that, but she would never be herself. She could live a life like that—it was truly astounding, the sorts of lives people were capable of living, when they had no feasible alternatives—but she would be forever subsumed, forever elided in favor of whoever had possession of her at that moment. She could live a life like that, but it wouldn’t be _her_ living it, now would it?

No. It would not be her living that life at all. Because ‘her’ was such an amorphous thing, something that could be shaped to fit the needs of whoever controlled her at the moment, that whoever lived that life would be someone who was wearing Ingrid’s skin, without being Ingrid herself.

Maybe that person would find it in herself, one day, to be happy.

The Ingrid who sat on this bed in the dark, her wet face pressed against the wall, hiccupping sobs still occasionally finding their way out of her chest, did not think she would be happy at all.

_I need a way to escape._

A tear dropped off of the tip of Ingrid’s nose, joining the others in Ingrid’s cupped palms as they slowly spilled down onto the front of her nightgown. She dug her fingernails into her face, the sparks of pain shooting across the surface of her skin oddly soothing.

_I need a way to escape._

Oh, how things had progressed, if she was thinking about escaping, escaping from all of it. In the morning, when sunlight deigned to grace her skin, she would perhaps think differently, would perhaps again bend her will to her duty and put aside thoughts of ‘escape,’ but things were different in the darkness, and that was—

It was not—

There was no escape.

Thinking of escape was folly, and not simply because Ingrid was yet bound to her duty, the bonds seemingly unbreakable. Thinking of escape was folly because there was _no_ escape. If Ingrid fled from the Officers Academy, the knights would be dispatched to bring her back; it would have been an unbearable stain on the reputation of the Central Church for a noble girl to escape from under their watchful eye, and them unable to bring her back to heel. If Ingrid fled from her home, her father would send the guards, or her older brothers (if they happened to be home), to bring her back. If Ingrid fled from her as-yet nameless, faceless husband, he, too, would send men to bring her back.

And suppose, for a moment, that Ingrid _did_ manage to flee, that she did manage to evade her captors, or that, through some bizarre happenstance, no one was sent out to capture her at all. What sort of life would she lead? Leaving aside the fact that Ingrid had little idea of how to live off the land, and that for large portions of the year, doing so would be impractical at best and ruinous at worst, the crushing isolation of such a life was nothing she thought she could bear. Ingrid did long for solitude at times—she knew no one who did not—but living her life ever alone, with no one for companionship but the animals she hunted, forsaken and deedless, sounded as terrible as any tale regarding the fates of those who went to the eternal flames. It was utterly intolerable.

So she would have to go on living in society, after having fled at whatever point the situation had becoming beyond her ability to bear. Ingrid could not go into the wilderness and stay there; she had not been made for a hermit’s life.

Neither had she been made to be a nun. Life within a church or an abbey or a convent was not something that appealed, not in the slightest. For one thing, to be cut off from horseback riding might well have been enough to actually kill her. For another, Ingrid knew her restlessness would drive her so far up the wall as to put her on the ceiling, and she would likely drag all of the other nuns up there with her. Ingrid had little desire to be forever alone. She had even less desire to be forever hated.

She would never become a knight if she fled from whatever home might be hers as a fugitive and a vagabond. This would eclipse the difficulties of overcoming her weakness to become a knight, or becoming a knight despite her status as a married woman. If she fled, the stain of scandal would cling to her like a fungus—no matter how it might be cut away, over and over again, it would sprout anew from its invisible roots. No reputable lord would want a knight with such a stain upon her; a truly reputable lord would have been more likely to send Ingrid back to whatever cage she had flown from. Ingrid could either accept her spurs from a lord of ill-repute, and stain herself even further by what she did in their service, or she could accept that she would never become a knight at all.

A mercenary, then. Ingrid’s skills and her talents made a martial career the only feasible one, if she embarked on her life in a situation where she was supporting herself entirely unaided. She would trade her services for money, becoming a warrior with no true allegiance, her morals no doubt becoming increasingly dubious with each passing year. No one truly trusted a mercenary, let alone the mercenaries who were presently in your employ—no employer, no intelligent employer, could be insensible to the fact that their hired warriors could become their hired enemies in the blink of an eye, if a rival simply offered them more gold.

Others, perhaps, could find meaning in a life like that, fighting and killing for coin while their current employers regarded them with contempt and distrust. Ingrid could find no meaning in it at all.

And none of those potential routes _mattered_ , anyways. Whoever had control over her would never let her go. A fresh round of sobs clamored in Ingrid’s chest, croaking in her mouth with renewed agony. They would never let her go. There would be no escape, no escape, no escape…

There came a knocking at the door.

Ingrid started, her heart hammering in her chest. As she groped in the blind dark, edging from the bed to stand on the chilly floor, the knocking came again, louder and more insistent.

It never occurred to Ingrid to call out to whoever was knocking. As she fumbled for a match to light her candle with, the reality of the world immediately outside the confines of her room crashed back down on her. Ingrid felt her face flush hot with shame as she realized just how loud she must have been. However much she had lost sight of the world outside of her room, it had not dissolved into nothing; it had still been there, all this time, and Ingrid would be lucky if she had managed not to wake up the whole hall with her racket.

But try as she might, she could not tell herself that it had been nothing worth crying about. She could not tell herself that there had been no reason to react as she had (She thought she had been a small child the last time a nightmare provoked both crying and loud sobbing). She should simply have cried more quietly. As Ingrid lit her candle, casting a single sliver of light into the dark of her room, she cursed herself for her lack of discretion. These dreams were _her_ problems. She had not wished to make them anyone else’s problems.

Ingrid did not see how she could have avoided drawing the attention of whoever knocked at her door. Sound carried, even through these sturdy walls. Unless she had held the tears and the sobs back in their entirety, she was bound to have drawn attention. It would have been impossible for no one to have noticed her distress. And yet, she wished she could have had her anonymity. She wished that no one could have figured out where the crying was coming from. She wished that no one had heard her at all.

But someone had heard her, and as Ingrid plucked her candlestick up from the dresser, the knocking came again, now even harder and rougher than the second round, her irritation with herself spilled out and reached them. Oh, but they were making just as big of a racket as she had made with her crying. Didn’t they care that people were trying to sleep? Didn’t they care that—

Ingrid swung the door none-too-gently open, hoping the knocker at least stumbled, and opened her mouth, a scold (perhaps a little blunted by the no-doubt scratchy quality of her voice, but she was reasonably confident that it would serve) ready on the tip of her tongue. Then, she stopped.

Edelgard stared silently at her from the other side of the doorway, the candle in her hand flickering violently despite the still air. She wore a thick, plush maroon dressing gown that drenched her body in red shadow, so that her face and her hands and hair shone in the dark, as if detached from the rest of her body. Her eyes scoured Ingrid’s face, loitering on her cheeks, where no doubt there lingered tear tracks and the indentation marks from where Ingrid had pressed the side of her face against the wall.

They stared at each other without saying anything, the air between them crackling with the energy of a thunder spell held at bay in a mage’s hand. Ingrid’s mouth ran too dry of words—and breath—to spit out the scolding words she had prepared. Her mouth ran too dry of words to say anything at all.

The way Edelgard’s mouth worked, nothing coming out, made Ingrid wonder if her mouth hadn’t run dry in just the same way.

The floorboards creaked from just a little further down the hall, and a shadow appeared at the edge of the light put off by Edelgard’s candle, eventually resolving into Marianne, who had come without a candle, apparently trusting to the familiarity of her surroundings.

Through the tangled veil of her loose hair, Marianne murmured, “I heard crying.” She was twisting the trailing sleeve hem of her silken blue dressing gown in her hands, crumpling the fabric beneath her fingers (Sometimes, Ingrid thought Marianne would have absolutely ruined the sleeves of her school uniform by now, had the fabric not been made of sterner stuff than her flimsier nightgowns and dressing gown). “I know I did.”

Yes, Ingrid could imagine she had. Ingrid would not be surprised if the people on the opposite end of the ground floor dormitories had heard her crying. She could only hope that she wouldn’t have every student in the Officers Academy at her door before the night failed.

Her gaze drifted to Ingrid’s face, and the pallid, baseline anxiety in her face sharpened to a much more present, focused worry. “Oh, Ingrid.” Her eyes fixed on Ingrid’s face in the sort of disbelief that made Ingrid feel something like she had strode into the training grounds for a sparring session while dressed in full court attire—or something considerably less genteel than that. It was probably something considerably less genteel, if Ingrid was being very honest. “Umm, what happened?” Her eyes dropped to stare intently at her bare feet. “I… I’m sorry; did you have a nightmare?”

If Ingrid looked so obviously pathetic that even the likes of Marianne, who drew more concerned glances and whispered questions of “are you alright?” than most plague-sufferers Ingrid had met, was shocked by it, Ingrid thought that might be a new low for her. And in front of Edelgard, too…

Only the Goddess could say how Ingrid must look in Edelgard’s eyes. Perhaps there would be some sort of reprieve to be found there, but Ingrid doubted it. What was more likely was that, if the Goddess could tell her, she would have had absolutely nothing flattering to say.

But then, the Goddess was unlikely to have anything flattering to say about someone who harbored such deviant thoughts in her mind, and such deviant wants in her heart. It was what Ingrid deserved.

Ingrid could not find it in her to give Marianne an answer to that question. That was probably for the best, since she did not think she would have found it in her to provide a _gracious_ answer, and Marianne was undeserving of such a response. Better to be incapable than to be vicious. To be incapable was still utterly inadequate, but it was better than cruelty.

And neither did Ingrid find herself obliged to stand there in silence and let Marianne draw her own conclusions. Edelgard turned to Marianne, saying to her, “I don’t think you need to worry, Marianne. You can go back to bed.”

Ingrid watched in relief as Marianne drifted back off into the darkness, though that relief was skewered through with the mortification that it had not come from her own mouth, that Edelgard had been required to speak for her (It had been a kindness, but it would be a long time before she would be able to accept it as such). _I should have at least been able to see her off myself. Why couldn’t I—_

Why couldn’t Ingrid control her own dreams enough to avoid being assailed by her nightmares? It was a useless question to ask, for Ingrid knew she would never find an answer she could accept. She could only grapple in the dark for something that sounded right, knowing she had absolutely no way to be sure.

Somewhere in the dark, there came the gentle click of Marianne’s door shutting against its frame. That left Ingrid alone with Edelgard, for the first time since Edelgard had met her outside of the infirmary, just after Ingrid had returned to Garreg Mach.

It had been by design that Ingrid had not been alone with Edelgard since then. Before she had finally admitted to herself the truth of what was in her mind and her heart, she had told herself that she wanted to sort out what she truly thought and felt about everything that had happened to her, and that she should not bother Edelgard while she did so. After the truth of it all had broken through the last, flimsy barriers in her mind, she had found herself simply unable to face the idea of speaking to Edelgard at all. Staring like a lecher was what she could yet do, to Ingrid’s shame, but actually _speaking_ to Edelgard was beyond her.

_I didn’t want—_

(She did, though.)

Ingrid… had not wanted to bother Edelgard. She was bitterly aware of how transparent she must be to others, and considering that, had not wanted to face Edelgard at all. She knew how aberrant these thoughts were, knew how unwelcome they must have been to any recipient of such, especially someone who must, regardless of her own desires, wed with the interests of her family’s legacy and their continued survival. Someone who must wed a man capable of giving her children was no doubt at best uninterested in pursuing a dalliance with a female classmate, more likely to be irritated at the thought of being pursued by a female classmate, and at worst…

Ingrid yet had enough regard for herself not to contemplate that worst-case scenario.

Ingrid had not spoken to Edelgard since that meeting outside of the infirmary, and neither had she met her gaze since then. She had not dared look to see what sort of expression Edelgard wore when she looked Ingrid’s way. She could guess, and that guess had been enough; Ingrid had never needed nor particularly desired proof.

Disgust, maybe?

Anger, maybe?

Rejection, certainly.

Ingrid could guess what she would see in Edelgard’s eyes, if their eyes ever again met.

She had guessed, but it seemed that she had guessed wrong. That, or Edelgard was better than most at pressing those sorts of emotions far below the surface of her eyes. For when Ingrid looked into Edelgard’s eyes, that was not what she saw at all.

What she was actually seeing was another question, and not one Ingrid was particularly eager to answer.

Edelgard looked at her in continued silence, her eyes bright in the dark and piercing as they bore into her face. As she did so, her lips thinned, curling slightly downwards into a frown. The mingled light of their candles flickered together, the twin flames putting off faint wisps of smoke, wavering as though they stood in the midst of a wind storm.

Edelgard took a single step towards Ingrid, and Ingrid stiffened, unwilling to give ground and back away, but every inch of skin on her body singing at the idea of proximity and her stomach churning as if all the tears she had swallowed while she cried had started to scream. Edelgard tilted her head to one side, her long, fine hair slipping over her shoulder, staring yet closer into Ingrid’s face.

No, Ingrid was not eager to answer the question at all.

And neither was she going to be the one who broke the silence. If she, upon making the final effort to actually _say_ something, went to say something and could only croak, the embarrassment would most likely strike her dead where she stood. She had enough desire to stay alive not to risk that.

Perhaps Edelgard sensed that Ingrid was going to keep her mouth firmly shut until she was spoken to first. Perhaps she had always intended to come here with a purpose beyond telling Ingrid to be quiet so that everyone else could sleep. Perhaps she was merely impatient. In the dark, the lighted world confined to the glow of two candle flames, nearly anything was possible.

“Are you well?” Edelgard asked her softly, quietly enough that no one in any of the other rooms, not even Marianne right next door, would have been able to hear her. But by some unnamed, unnamable quality of her voice, Ingrid thought that that was not her purpose in speaking so quietly.

 _Yes_ hovered on the tip of Ingrid’s tongue, compelling and tantalizing. Now that she had been prompted to speak, doing so felt as easy as breathing, and what felt even easier was to just say ‘yes.’ To just say anything that came to mind in the interest of reassuring Edelgard of her well-being and convincing her to return to her room.

 _Yes_ was as tantalizing as the promise of being transported to a world where nothing distressing had ever happened to Ingrid, and she was possessed of a mind and a heart that could be glad to be an obedient daughter, an obedient wife, a virtuous mother, a virtuous grandmother, and then dead with the truth of her life’s story written over by those who had never seen into her heart to understand the truth of what dwelled there. To say _yes_ was to have a bite of the most delicious meal she had ever had.

To say _yes_ , it would have all turned to ash into her mouth.

Ingrid breathed hard through her nose, the cold air a shock in her lungs. Slowly, the single syllable dragging itself from her mouth like a wounded animal: “No.”

Edelgard pursed her lips and sighed, her eyes glimmering with something that Ingrid could at least identify as sympathy. “So, you have reached that point, then?”

“…Yes.”

Edelgard took yet another step closer, and Ingrid, just the same as before, did not step away. “If I told you to follow me,” she said, so softly that the words seemed to exist more in Ingrid’s own mind, the rattle that made her skin prickle and her pulse fluctuate wildly, than in the air, “would you do it?”

Ingrid’s heart thumped so loudly in her chest that she wondered, for one wild moment, if Edelgard could hear it as well. Her voice nearly a croak, she replied, “Follow you where?”

“Not far.” Edelgard’s eyes drifted to the stairwell. “Outside.”

Ingrid did not respond in words. Instead, she at last retreated into her room, lacing up her boots and retrieving her spare winter cloak from the chest at the foot of her bed. She didn’t question it, not for a single moment. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.

“You won’t need your candle,” Edelgard told her, as Ingrid again approached the doorway of her room. Edelgard’s pale eyes lingered on the candle in Ingrid’s hand a moment. “My candle should suffice on its own.”

“Are you sure?” Ingrid asked her skeptically. Once you got outside, candlelight did not carry very far, especially when you only had one.

Edelgard smiled suddenly, almost wistfully. “Oh, so you are feeling well enough for skepticism? That’s reassuring. But yes, Ingrid, I am sure. We are not going far, and I _do_ know the way.”

They crept down the stairwell, putting their weight on the stairs only gingerly—it would not have done to actually, unambiguously awaken the students closest to the stairwell on, and though Ingrid did not think that the curfew was being very strictly enforced anymore, the curfew that had been put into place for the students when Flayn was kidnapped had never officially been lifted. On another night, Ingrid might have balked at the idea of being led out into the night after the curfew had taken effect. On another night, she might have refused to go outside of the dormitories and risk incurring the wrath of the knights, and might have instead suggested talking inside of her room, or simply been angered at the thought that one of her classmates was trying to coax her into doing something that could land her on the wrong side of the knights’ tempers.

On another night, Ingrid might have waved Edelgard away when she asked her _‘Are you well?’_ This was not a normal night, and Ingrid could not feel the pang that the prospect of rule-breaking should have inspired in her. This was not a normal night, and Ingrid followed Edelgard out of the stairwell without a word of protest finding its way into her mouth.

The night was chilly and silent, without the slightest breath of wind to break the impression Ingrid got, that they could easily have been the only people in Garreg Mach at all. If there were guards on patrol, they encountered none of them as they made their way up the cobbled paths. The only sign of movement in the quiet night was far above them. The clouds swirled and danced, chasing each other across the dark sky. Occasionally, the moon would break free of their embrace, the sickle that showed its face to the world casting a pale, weak light down upon them. What it lit up was so empty of people or lit windows as to make Ingrid think, for a brief, dreamy moment, that they really were alone here.

But that was fantasy. Ingrid would not countenance the idea that she was still dreaming. If she countenanced that idea, she must next countenance the idea that it could all go wrong somehow. That this almost pleasant dream could twist and contort itself into a nightmare, a new phantasm to haunt her waking hours.

No, she was not going to countenance that. It was another sign of her weakness, she supposed, but she wanted to believe that this was real. The chill that bit her skin felt real. The roughness of her boots against bare skin felt real. The raw ache in her throat, the stinging in her eyes, the residue of tears on her cheeks, it all felt real. She could believe that the rest of it was real as well. She must.

It had not occurred before to Ingrid to wonder where they were going. Edelgard led, and she followed; it had been as simple as that. But as they kept on walking, curiosity began to wake inside of her. And when Edelgard paused outside the doors to the training grounds, curiosity woke all at once.

“Why…” Ingrid stared uncertainly at the solid, sturdy doors. “…Why are we here?”

“This seemed the place to go,” Edelgard replied, simply.

“Won’t the doors be locked?”

“They don’t lock these doors.” The shadow of a smirk tugged at the corner of Edelgard’s mouth, distorted and exaggerated by the deep darkness that lingered outside the nimbus of light surrounding her candle. “There’s nothing in here worth stealing.”

To that, Ingrid would beg to differ, and might have actually differed, if she had found it in herself to do so. The archery targets would have been valuable to a lot of people, and you _could_ kill someone with the training weapons, if you put a lot of effort into it. But Edelgard was thinking from the perspective of someone who had likely never suffered a dearth of such things. In her world, archery targets and training weapons were so plentiful that, indeed, there would never have been any need for anyone to steal them.

Ingrid felt so far away from her, when she thought of things like that. But the bittersweet feeling of it was weak and bland and short-lived compared to everything else that had raged through her this night. She left it behind her, and when Edelgard indeed pushed the doors open without needing to fumble with a lock pick, Ingrid followed her inside without protest or misgivings.

“You…” Her mind was moving so slowly, like old sap dribbling down from a wound in a tree trunk. “You really wish to spar? At this time of night?”

Something else was bubbling up in her mind, so slowly, so laboriously, but now that it had been born, it would not leave.

The last time Ingrid had offered to spar with Edelgard, she had been refused out of hand. She had been refused out of hand, so swiftly, as if Ingrid had simply asked her if she wished for her to fetch her a skin of water and Edelgard had already had one at hand. To be offered the chance now, if that was indeed what Edelgard was offering, felt a little as if the ground was giving way beneath her feet.

If that was what Ingrid was being offered.

Edelgard stooped to set her candle on the ground, the metal of its holder making a dull clink against the earthen floor. As she was still crouched low over the candle, all maroon shadow and pale caul of hair, she made a small noise in the back of her throat. “…Yes. I think we may both find it edifying.”

And just like that, while Ingrid was still processing her shock, Edelgard went to the racks and selected a training sword, running her fingers over where the edge would have been, had the weapon even been possessed of such. To her, it was like this was normal, like this was daytime and they were with their classes and they had just been asked by Professor Melusine to break off into pairs to spar. She even seemed to be looking the training sword over for any sign of splintering (We wouldn’t want to have a situation like the one Ingrid had witnessed between Lord Gwendal and that young knight so many years ago, now would we?).

This was not a normal sparring session. But then, this was not a normal night, and Ingrid did not feel normal.

Unmoored and weightless and unsteady, Ingrid went to the racks and picked out a training sword of her own. She went through sword after sword, trying in the gloom to find something suited to her properly. There was the scant illumination of candlelight, and she was still getting flashes of moonlight through the skylight, but the racks were under shade, and she could only go on how heavy or light the different training swords felt in her hands, how balanced the heft felt when she brandished it. They were bereft of any identifying marks, so she could not even look for one that had a knot or another blemish that she might have recognized.

After some time spent fumbling in the dark, Ingrid at last found a training sword she was satisfied with, but as she stepped out into the mingled light of the candle and the stray beams of moonshine, she thought it felt wrong in her hands. Something about it felt as if it was not wood at all, but something more alive than the severed bone of a likely long-dead tree. Something about it felt like it could have reared back and bitten her, had it cared to.

But that was a fancy. More likely, there was something wrong with her. More likely, her mind still had half a foot in sleep.

More likely than not, Ingrid’s mind still had half a foot in sleep, and perhaps that was why it did not occur to her that she should not be sparring, if she was tired, or thought the sword was ill-suited to her, or if the only light was faint and depended on the caprices of the clouds above or the lifespan of wick and tallow.

Her teeth chattered in her skull as she offered a shallow bow to Edelgard, who, to her great shock ( _why should I be shocked; it is only courtesy, and a princess would have been taught her courtesies since before she could speak or even walk_ ), offered a shallow bow in return. Ingrid lifted her training sword to a position of readiness, the weapon in her hands feeling as if it was made of lead—or perhaps it was the bones in her hands and arms that were made of lead, and the weakness that came upon us all so soon after leaving sleep, if we tried to bend our body to the tasks our minds set for us.

_Can I—_

_Can I even—_

She would soon find out. For good or ill, her heart starting to hammer anew in her chest, Ingrid would soon find out.

“We should speak,” Edelgard asserted, as she made an initial, almost lazy, exploratory strike, one that even with her sword or her limbs feeling like lead, Ingrid could easily deflect. “I think we will have much to talk about.”

There was more than a slight hint of intent in her voice, a promise or a threat, or maybe Ingrid was imagining it, and the assertion was only an idle one, one that could have been as easily dismissed as Edelgard had dismissed her that day what felt like a lifetime ago, when Ingrid had offered to spar. Ingrid didn’t think so, though. Edelgard was looking at her in that intent way, her shadowed eyes poring over Ingrid’s face, and Ingrid did not think Edelgard was looking for deviance there, looking for the elided hint of the unwanted and the unwelcome. Once again, Edelgard looked at her and the way she looked at her made Ingrid feel naked.

No, Ingrid did not think the assertion had been idle at all.

“And…” Words were still just a touch slow in coming, but Ingrid’s mind was working faster, now, and it was not too difficult to summon the words to her mouth. “And what will we speak of?”

Several different topics flashed through Ingrid’s mind, each more ridiculous than the last. Would they speak of their classes, of the upcoming Battle of the Eagle and Lion? Would they speak of the sermons they sat there listening to in church services, reluctantly admit the times they had let their minds drift while whatever priest was preaching the sermon this time droned on and on, each priest as dull a storyteller as the last? Would they confess the times they had woken in the middle of the night, the knowledge that they had forgotten to do the last five or so questions on an assignment screaming in their mind until they grudgingly lit a candle and did those last questions, inevitably finding that by the time they blew their candle out again, there was new light to disrupt their rest?

Would they speak of their favorite meals in the dining hall, and how much they wished they could get a recipe to take home with them and give to the cooks in their homes, and how much they wished they could obtain all of the ingredients and spices it would have been difficult to obtain in their native climes? Would they speak of their families (mutilated in Edelgard’s case, and now estranged in Ingrid’s), and who among them they most missed, and most longed to see again? (There, Ingrid thought she might have been treading into dangerous territory, for whatever had become of Edelgard’s siblings, and her curiosity and worry was mounting anew, Ingrid doubted it was something Edelgard particularly wished to recall.)

Would they speak of their favorite songs, folk songs or hymns or traveling songs or the kind of romantic ballads wandering bards who stopped off at inns and castles for the night liked to sing for their audiences? Would they speak of how much success they had ever had singing those songs, if they could hit high notes without their deep voices breaking on the syllables, or if they just sounded like someone was strangling a cat, whenever they tried to sing away from a group whose efforts could mask their own? Would they speak of their childhood friends? Would they speak of their childhood dreams? Would they speak of the fears that had dogged their steps since they were old enough to understand what fear was, and had never left them since?

Would they speak of the _weather_?

But that was all so, so ridiculous, and for more reasons than just one. Some of it was frivolous, and some of it would flay open anyone who ventured to speak of it. But those were not the primary reasons they were ridiculous things to speak of, in this time and place.

No, they were ridiculous, because this was not the time or place, and Ingrid thought she already knew what Edelgard wished to speak of.

What Edelgard wished to speak of might eventually involve Ingrid flaying herself open, anyways. The thought made her oddly giddy.

Edelgard made a gesture that was not a shrug, because even in her nightgown and dressing gown and without her ribbons in her hair, she was still too elegant to properly shrug. “We may speak of the state of the world, and its likely future, if it stays on the path it is currently driven down.” She made a short jabbing motion with her sword in Ingrid’s direction, so heavily telegraphed that Ingrid had no problem following the trajectory of the blade and blocking it once more. “We may also speak of you. I believe the conversation could be…” She paused, visibly grappling for words “…profitable.”

The idea of a ‘profitable’ conversation made Ingrid’s stomach squirm, a feeling like she had swallowed a pair of live birds who were now trying _very_ insistently to find their way back out. She could not back out now, though. She had followed Edelgard this far, and beyond the dread, there was something else that was driving her to remain. She wanted to see what Edelgard would regard as a ‘profitable’ conversation, when it came to Ingrid.

“Ask me…”

‘What you will’ curled on the tip of Ingrid’s tongue, but somehow, she could not quite find it in herself to actually say it. Actually saying it felt like throwing herself into an abyss, putting herself entirely too much in Edelgard’s power. Ingrid made a short, abortive feint, something she’d _not_ meant to make obvious but had apparently managed to do anyways, for Edelgard brought the flat of her sword up to block Ingrid’s sword before Ingrid had even stretched her arm out the whole way.

By the time Ingrid had backed away from Edelgard and begun to regard her again, looking for an opening through which she could have struck a blow, she had something to mind that she thought acceptable.

“Ask me what you like,” Ingrid told her quietly, pushing down sharply on any emotion that might blossom up out of her mouth. “I cannot guarantee that I will be able to answer to your satisfaction.”

Edelgard nodded crisply. “That is the risk anyone must endure when speaking with another. So long as we make honest endeavors to understand each other, we have profited more than we would have if we spoke clearly, but with closed hearts and closed minds.”

Ingrid tilted her head to one side. Her hair was shifting in a different way than it would have had it been braided and not loose, and the difference made her feel unbalanced. “You must find the royal court in Enbarr maddening.”

It was just a guess, that, but Ingrid could remember the complex rules of protocol that had ruled over Fhirdiad’s royal court, could remember also how tricky it could be to discern genuine compliments from the backhanded ones. The binding lines of alliances looked so like the binding lines of rivalries at times, given how easy it was to mistake good-natured ribbing for bad-natured jibing. Perhaps it had all seemed so complicated to Ingrid because she was a child the last time she was at court, or perhaps it had all seemed so complicated to Ingrid because it _was_ so very complicated.

What she had known then, and still felt now, was that the world of knights and chivalry felt to her so much more clear-cut. Whether or not that estimation was correct, Ingrid was uncertain. Especially now. But she knew that she preferred the rules of knighthood to the labyrinthine rules of navigating the royal court without making an ass of yourself and shaming your family in the process.

“Certain…” The next pause sounded almost cautious, though no sign of caution flitted across what of Edelgard’s face, cast into shadow as the moon was again swallowed up. “…Aspects of it are frustrating to me, yes.”

“I imagine you intend to make it over to your liking once you accede your throne.”

Edelgard was too elegant to shrug, but apparently not so elegant as to regard snorting as an unacceptable sound. “Without a doubt. I have little patience for the backstabbing that has become so deeply ingrained in the royal court.”

To that, Ingrid could not say she was surprised. The daughter of an emperor who had been betrayed by his own ministers would no doubt rate fidelity highly among her own prospective subordinates. In Edelgard’s place, Ingrid suspected she would have stripped the ministers of their posts and sent them packing back to their home territories the moment she was crowned. But though Ingrid had little experience of royal courts beyond what the imperfect memory of a child could provide for her, she knew it was not so simple as all that; the ministers were no doubt deeply-entrenched in their seats of power, and it would take more than a single order from the emperor to truly uproot them.

_Imagine if you could, though. Imagine if a single word was all it took to cure all the injustice in the world, and a single word all it took to prevent new injustice from infecting the world anew. What would that word be, I wonder?_

But that was unrealistic. It would take more than a word to cure the world of its ills. And bulling through and trying to remove deeply-entrenched corrupt officials without putting a plan into place first did not sound like a course of action Edelgard would have been too enamored of. Edelgard, Ingrid thought, would want to be sure of her chances of ousting the men who had betrayed her father and were surely waiting to betray her as well. After all, there were no stakes higher than the ones you cast from a throne. You had to be sure.

For so many things, you just had to be sure.

“What will you do when you leave Garreg Mach?” Edelgard asked abruptly.

“I… Go home. There is nothing else.”

No, there was nothing else. Bitterness fouled Ingrid’s mouth as she thought of it. She would go home, for there was nothing else she could do. If she tried to go elsewhere, her father would send for her. Perhaps he would be courteous enough as to first send to her through letters, giving her the chance to come home of her own accord, or perhaps it would be guards or her older brothers right from the start. One way or another, Ingrid would go home to her gilded cage and wait, wait until her father found another gilded cage to send her to. That would be her life, passed from cage to cage and jailer to jailer, prisoner of every duty and obligation she could not escape.

…Yes, she did still want to escape it all. That had not simply been the fancy of a mind still weighed down with uneven, terrorized sleep. She did want to escape it.

But you could not live your life with no obligations. You could not live your life with duty to nothing and no one. To live life so utterly uprooted, well, that was the thing about uprooted plants, wasn’t it? Strip them of their connection to the earth, and they would dry out, wither and die, and then the wind would come and blow their corpses away to parts unknown. Most people were like that, too; they needed something they could tie themselves to. Ingrid had known—or heard of, at least—people who could live their whole lives without tying themselves to something, without ever feeling any of the bonds of duty upon themselves, but that was not any kind of life, as far as Ingrid was concerned, and there was little in those people that she could find to admire.

Ingrid must bind herself to something, to some duty, if not to that. If not her duty to her father, her obligation to follow his will as the product of his and her mother’s flesh, then what? If she discarded the duties that had bound her up to this moment, what new would she find to bind herself with? She must. She just didn’t know what.

(A thought came up to her, unbidden: _Are there no true knights in the Empire?_ But that was useless to consider, utterly useless.)

“I suppose it is best to have a base of operations from which to consider your plans,” Edelgard allowed. She eyed Ingrid’s sword hand closely, mouth twisting in contemplation. “But what will you do after you go home? Will you allow your father to arrange another marriage for you?”

She said it like Ingrid had a choice. She said it like anyone in Ingrid’s position had a choice.

Ingrid bit back a bitter laugh. “I do not _allow_ my father to do anything. My father does what is best for our house, and to that end, he will act as he chooses.”

“He acts for the best interest of your house?” Edelgard asked her, very softly.

“Yes.”

“And does he act for what is in your best interest?”

Ingrid did not answer. She did not trust herself to speak.

They circled around each other, swords outstretched so that they never came closer than around five feet from each other. Their feet made no noise against the earth, and though the moon came out occasionally, the world that surrounded the radius of their circle was bathed in darkness. All but for the candle, which flickered still, guttering and flaring as if subjected to heavy wind. Golden light could not touch Ingrid. She felt as something that could be touched by nothing, held and comforted by nothing, guided and restrained by nothing.

This went on for Ingrid could not imagine how long, punctuated by the occasional attempted slash or stab of a sword that by necessity could not be as forceful as it would have been even if they were actually with their classes, for nightgowns and dressing gowns and cloaks could not guard flesh the way their padded training gear could. One could be bruised very easily by a training sword, if one was not wearing the proper gear.

After a while, it began to feel like a dance.

Following a clash where the tips of their swords met only lightly, Edelgard broke the silence. “You are not happy.”

A scream rattled in Ingrid’s throat, the chill of the training grounds suddenly becoming something totally beyond her capacity to comprehend. “Why should I be unhappy?” and all she could find to be grateful for was that the voice with which she spoke to Edelgard was not so shaky as the voice with which she thought.

It was not a rhetorical question. It was not idle. The seed of furious desperation had planted itself in Ingrid’s mind, and it sought to grow into something that could scream so loud that all the world could hear. Ingrid wanted to hear it, but she wanted to hear it from Edelgard’s mouth. Wanted to hear from this steadfast, stalwart woman every last reason she should be unhappy. She wanted her ears to be full of the noise of her woes repeated back to her, like an actor performing a monologue before an invisible audience.

Ingrid wanted to hear someone describe everything that had happened to her as reasons she should be unhappy. She wanted to hear it said. She wanted to hear someone tell her that those things were cause for unhappiness. She wanted to hear someone tell her something, anything that could make her unhappiness feel less like the petulant tantrums of an ungrateful daughter.

“Shall we make a list?” Edelgard returned, one fine eyebrow raised high up towards her hairline. “I suspect it could go on for a while. But such is the same of everyone who draws breath. I can imagine what would make me unhappy, if I was in your position, but only you can know for sure. You _are_ unhappy. Only you can tell me why.”

It had been too much to hope for that Edelgard would make things easy for her. Ingrid did not know why she was surprised. Edelgard was not the sort to coddle those she spoke to, for whatever reason.

Ingrid tried to suck in a deep breath as she kept on the dance. She failed at this, instead finding herself choking on a series of shallow, jittery breaths. They were alone here. They were alone here. There was no one to hear. No one but them.

Trying to breathe evenly enough to speak evenly was a wash, and she knew it. There was no one here but them, and Edelgard could guess at the reason, even if, as she said, she could not know for sure. “I’m _trapped_ ,” she forced out, her throat stinging.

Edelgard regarded her in silence, the moonlight that spilled out from a break in the clouds illuminating her face milky-white. Not statue-like, not this time. When Edelgard looked at her, it was with a softening in her eyes that made Ingrid ache. “Now,” she said softly, “that is something I have some experience of.” At a more normal volume, she went on, “You say you are trapped. How do you intend to free yourself?”

Ingrid stared at her in naked shock. “How do I intend to _free_ myself? How _can I_ free myself?! My father will still wish to marry me to a wealthy man. He will accept no other path that I attempt to forge for myself; he _certainly_ would not accept it if I told him that I do not wish to marry. The good of our house is paramount to him, and as far as he is concerned, the only way to elevate our house’s prospects is to marry me to the wealthiest man who will have me.”

And if another suitor like Niklaus Kneller came along, another suitor with more money than morals who was more than willing to wave that money in her father’s face, who was to say that her father would not again be distracted by the prospect of all of his hopes coming to pass? If such a thing occurred, who was to say that Ingrid would be as fortunate as she had been the first time? Who was to say that she would not discover her new husband’s immorality only _after_ she had sworn vows of fidelity to him? How easily she could wind up like Sieglinde, from the tale Mercedes had told in the cathedral, in times that had been complicated, but had still felt so much simpler than this. But unlike Sieglinde, Ingrid did not think she would have anything so convenient as a magical pit she could shove her husband into. She did not think she would have anything resembling so easy a time extricating herself from him.

No, if Ingrid was to rid herself of an immoral husband, she could not do it without bringing shame on herself, and onto her family. She could not rid the earth of his foulness without tainting herself. If she was wed to an immoral man, she would not walk away from that marriage clean.

And even when Ingrid tried to contemplate life married to a man who was not as utterly depraved as Kneller had proven, she could not imagine herself being happy in such a life. Everyone must bind themselves to something, everyone must have a duty to something, but putting herself in someone’s power in such a fashion as a wife was in the power of her husband, the very _idea_ of it, was intolerable to her. Ingrid just could not make herself happy with the prospect of it. When she thought of it, she felt only dread.

“Has he tried other ways?” Edelgard still held her sword at the ready, but she no longer seemed to be aiming to strike out with it. After all, why strike out with the sword when the tongue was so much more devastating a weapon? “Has he sought other avenues to improve your house’s fortunes? Or has he rested the burden of forging a brighter future for your house entirely upon your shoulders, entirely based on the fact that you have a Crest?”

“I don’t know.” Ingrid’s hands shook upon the hilt of her sword. “I don’t know. If he has, he hasn’t…”

Séverin and Marcel followed the tourney circuit around, trying to pick up prize money. But that was not a long-term solution, and Father had often expressed the wish that they would fight in the lists rather less often than they did. If he had other plans to improve House Galatea’s fortunes, by seeking appointments in the royal court or the rights to tolls from important roads or bridges or anything else like that, he had never shared those plans with Ingrid. Nothing required him to share those plans with Ingrid, but she’d never heard a whisper of them, not once.

It had always been Ingrid. Her Crest was the blessing that would save House Galatea from ruinous poverty, and Ingrid was vehicle by which her Crest would be used to benefit her family, and enrich the bloodline of whatever man she was married off to.

It had always been Ingrid. Just Ingrid.

She had her answer. She did not need Edelgard’s guidance to make her way any closer to it.

“No.” Saying it felt a little like dying. Saying it felt a little like becoming someone else. “No, I don’t think he has. I think it has always been just me. And I—“ The world wobbled. Or maybe it was Ingrid who wobbled. Then again, it could have been both. “—I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”

Ingrid’s arms felt, more than ever, as if they were made of lead. Their weight grew so great that she could not hold them up, and they fell limp against her front. She kept her grip on the training sword, which rested awkwardly against her legs, shifting with each uneven inhale of breath, its tip drawing a crooked line on the dusty earth.

Ingrid stared down at her hands, white-knuckled while wrapped around the wooden hilt of the sword. She kept imagining her hands covered in blood, but no, the only thing on her hands was sweat.

Could she ever forge a different life with those hands? Could she even guess at the shape of the world she would have to find to forge that different life at all?

“I’m angry.” Her voice would not rise above a whisper. The scream was close, now, so close, but it was trapped in her mouth and could not find its way out, and thus she must bleed it out slowly into her words. “He wasn’t careful enough. He wasn’t careful enough, and I was nearly married to a monster because of it.” And then, when she came home to tell him what had happened to her, he made her…

She couldn’t talk about that. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to talk about that.

“Because I have a Crest, because I can bear more children with Crests, my father tries to pass me around like a collection plate.” The scream was in the words in full now, for all that the volume of her voice had barely risen above its whisper. Force could bely volume. “I don’t think he’s learned his lesson; I don’t think he’s going to be any more careful regarding the men who come looking for me in the future. And I don’t…” Ingrid’s eyes swam, whether with tears or with rage, she could not say; the stinging felt as if it could have come from either source. “I don’t trust him to be careful. Not anymore. The only thing I trust him to do is get the best deal for my…” She shook her head, bile rising in her throat. “…My purchase,” she spat. “I’m sure he’ll be certain to extract my full value from whatever man will have me. But I don’t think he’ll stop to wonder whether the man is a good man, or if he thinks I could be happy with him. It will be enough for him that my bride price saved House Galatea from ruin.”

There was a part of Ingrid’s mind that yet told her that she was being uncharitable to say such things. But it was dying fast, and Ingrid did not think she would hear from it again. Perhaps she would mourn when it was gone. Perhaps not.

“But I can’t escape it.” Ingrid shook her head in agitation. She might have actually screamed, then, but there was a chance that a scream might alert the guards. She wanted no larger audience than what she already had. “I can’t escape it. I can’t get away from it, no matter what I do. I have to go home; if I don’t, my father will send men to bring me home. My father cannot force me to wed the man he chooses for me, but he will ensure that I know how my defiance hurts the cause of our house. I don’t think… I don’t think I would be strong enough to keep my resolve in the face of that. So I would be married, and I would be bound to my husband until my death or his. My life will dwindle down to the hearth and the birthing bed, and I can’t _escape it._ Not without forsaking all honor.

“And then I think of every other woman who was not as fortunate as I. I think of every man or woman trapped in that cage, just because they had a Crest. If they couldn’t escape, how can I? If they died in that cage, how can I avoid such a fate?” The sword slipped from Ingrid’s hands. Her eyes filled. The moonlight was just bright enough for her to see the dark spots of her tears dripping on the floor. “I don’t see any way out. All is dark before my feet.”

Still staring down at the floor, Ingrid saw Edelgard’s approach only in the form of the wavering shadow that drew near her. A dull clatter signified Edelgard letting her own sword fall. Ingrid did not look up.

Edelgard’s hands settled suddenly upon Ingrid’s shoulders, which… Ingrid did not know what she hated more, the fact that she flinched, or that she wanted to lean into the touch and never step away from its warmth. “Ingrid…” The edges of Edelgard’s voice were softened with uncertainty, but the steel was still audible underneath. “Things will be different, one day. Not for a long time, perhaps, but they _will_ be different.”

“ _How_?! They’ve been like this for over a thousand years; how could we _ever_ hope to change them?!”

“I never said I thought it would be easy!” Edelgard retorted. She sighed. And then, oh, then, she lifted her left hand from Ingrid’s shoulder, slipping it under her chin. The touch was like a bolt of lightning out of a cloudless sky, and Ingrid found her lungs knocked empty of breath. Staring intently into Ingrid’s face, eyes bright and mouth firm, she said, “I do not intend to allow affairs to continue as they have before. You can be a part of that, if you so choose.” Her brow furrowed, resolve crumpling into weariness. “Truly, I do not think it will be easy. I do not think it will be _nice_. We may bloody our hands a thousand times over, we may wade through a thousand rivers of blood, but if at the end of our journey is a world where such abuses are no longer tolerated, wouldn’t that be something worth fighting for?”

Ingrid blinked. She was still grappling for breath, still grappling for anything to say. But yes, she did. She did think that would be worth fighting for.

It might set her against the whole world, but if she could create a world where no other man or woman, boy or girl, fought off kidnappers in fiery Ailell, Ingrid thought it might be worth it.

The clouds parted from the moon in full, drenching them in pale light. When Ingrid’s eyes drifted downwards, she could see a winding scar on Edelgard’s hand thrown into stark relief, as livid as if it had been inflicted yesterday.

She drew a deep breath.

“How did you… how did you get these scars?” Ingrid asked her, her voice thrumming with something like desperation, something like love, but too jagged to be either. “I’ve thought about it over and over again since I first saw them, but I can never make sense of it.”

Just like she could not make sense of how Edelgard had once had brown hair. Just like she could never make sense of how Edelgard had once had ten brothers and sisters, and then they had vanished, and no one seemed to care nearly as much as they should. Life was full of bewilderments, and these far from the least compelling.

Edelgard faltered, a shadow of fear flickering over her pallid features. “One day,” she said slowly, “I will tell you. But not here. Not now.” She set her jaw. “Not while I still have so much more work to do. When we make that land where such abuses cannot happen again, I will tell you. When it is nothing but an old nightmare, and not a monster of the waking world, I will tell you. When the knowledge has no teeth left, and can no longer be used to hurt you, I will tell you.”

Slowly, Ingrid nodded.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Edelgard removed her hand from under Ingrid’s chin and took several steps back. Her right hand lingered on Ingrid’s arm a moment before it, too, fell. “I think we have finished our business here. We still have class tomorrow. We should return to our rooms.”

Ingrid nodded once more. It seemed the only thing to do.

Edelgard retrieved her yet-flickering candle from the floor and started for the door, Ingrid heading after her. As they neared the shadowed door, Ingrid called out to her, in a voice she both did not recognize, and that sounded more like her than any that had yet escaped her mouth: “Edelgard.”

At that, Edelgard stopped, and turned to face her. Only candlelight illuminated her face now, painting her in a gentle golden glow. Ingrid could have made the comparison to a gilded statue, but when she looked at her, she thought more of the light of dawn painting all it touched with its hues. Nothing static here, nothing immobile. She was always in motion, always changing. There was a fire in her, but Ingrid did not think it the sort of fire that would consume indiscriminately, and leave nothing alive in its place. Rather, it was the sort of fire that would nurture new life. The sort of fire that could touch cold white with gold.

Ingrid smiled wistfully, her eyes welling once again. “I do think that would be a world worth doing battle to create. I would like to see it, if you will let me.”

This earned her a spate of startled laughter, sweet as the rain after a long drought. “Of course. I do not stand as a gatekeeper, deciding who may experience the future and who may not. All who are willing to accept the changes it will bring are welcome there.”

But when Edelgard smiled at her, it was a small, intent smile, that Ingrid knew was meant for her alone.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **CN/TW** : Xenophobia against non-humans, aka “CF!Rhea lost the propaganda war before it even started thanks to her own behavior, but yeah, fear of her takes on a particularly ‘this is an inhuman monster’ tinge”; oppressive governments; censorship]

Once upon a time, there was a princess in a tower. The tower was her flesh and her voice and her mind, the walls she raised to keep invaders out. The tower was presumed by many to be a symbol of tyranny, a symbol of her confinement and the scars it had left on her, and perhaps it was so, but the tower was more to her than simply that. The tower was her shelter from the rampant cruelty and tyranny of the outside world, that which would have readily and happily devoured her had her heart been soft enough to pierce.

A tower was also good for serving as a base from which the princess could enact her plans. Slowly, steadily, they marched towards fruition, and she began to lower herself out the window by a rope of her own hair, towards the ground far below where the future waited. It would be so easy for her to fall on the way down, so easy to slip on the treacherously smooth stone. One false move, and she would go plummeting down, down, down, until her body was crushed in the embrace of the unyielding ground and her blood poured out to water the hungry soil.

-

No one expressed much in the way of surprise when Ingrid transferred to the Black Eagles’ class at the end of the Wyvern Moon. She had resolved herself to wait until after the Battle of the Eagle and Lion—it would have been ungracious to leave behind the Blue Lions before then, when the strategies Dimitri had contemplated to lead them to victory all involved Ingrid’s presence on their team. (She might have been flattered. Might have been. She likely _should_ have been flattered. But the emotion never came to her.)

So, Ingrid stayed with the Blue Lions for the rest of the month, listening to the rest of them (even Felix, after a while) chatter excitedly (alright, so Dedue was not chattering, _exactly_ ) about the fast-approaching Battle of the Eagle and Lion. She could not share their excitement. It no longer seemed quite as pointless to her as it had before, but she could not quite summon the passion for it she had once felt. It would prove a useful training exercise, but Ingrid could not regard it as a path to knighthood in the Kingdom, not anymore. Wherever her path took her, she did not think it would be there.

The Black Eagles won the mock battle, which came as no true surprise to anyone. They had had the constant guidance of Professor Melusine, who had more than lived up to the fearsome reputation she had cultivated for herself before coming to the monastery—if anything, with the Sword of the Creator at her command, Professor Melusine was hard at work cultivating a new reputation for herself, more fearsome than the last, and more righteous, as well. With Professor Melusine’s guidance, with her involvement in the battle (even if she had refrained from bringing the Sword of the Creator to Gronder Field), the Black Eagles’ victory was a foregone conclusion.

They had won in truly spectacular fashion, though, without even one of their party needing to retreat to the medical tent, and that had been somewhat less expected. _Ingrid_ had not expected it, certainly, and she regarded it as just one more reason to transfer to the Black Eagles. Every student had Professor Melusine’s guidance in the training grounds, but Ingrid burned with the desire to experience her guidance more directly.

And, admittedly, there was another reason for the transfer. But that was Ingrid’s business, and she did not appreciate attempts to pry.

As mentioned before, no one was terribly surprised when, in the opening days of the Red Wolf Moon, Ingrid transferred to the Black Eagles. Part of that, she could attribute to the mission she had gone on with the class; when one went on a mission that lasted more than a week with a class that was not their own, one was apparently sending a message to the rest of the student body. If said student body had known what that mission was really all about, perhaps the message would have been different in its wording, but the thrust of it would have always been the same.

The other part of the general lack of surprise was that, after they had been thoroughly trounced by the Black Eagles in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, many of the Blue Lions and Golden Deer were beginning to regard Professor Melusine in a rather different light. Felix had always taken the professor’s skills seriously, but now, just from the way he talked, Ingrid thought he might be joining her in the Black Eagles’ classroom before long. Leonie seemed to have finally found it in her to put aside her disrespectful pretenses of a ‘rivalry’ (thoroughly unreciprocated—so unreciprocated that it had been a recurring topic of gossip among the students for the last several months, now) with Professor Melusine. Professor Melusine was already well-acquainted with Mercedes, Marianne, and Lysithea from Professor Manuela’s healing sessions, and Professor Melusine had taken the time with Lysithea in particular to train her with exceptionally lightweight swords. And, perhaps most surprising of all, Sylvain’s scrutiny had transformed from the way he stared at any attractive woman who crossed his path to the contemplation of someone who was actually starting to consider her as a combatant, and as a combat instructor.

Ingrid was simply one member of a mass defection, and thus, little surprise was spared for her. She integrated, she thought, quite well into the Black Eagles. Professor Melusine quickly adjusted to the larger share of students, and Ingrid found the classwork much the same, once she accounted for a greater emphasis on battle tactics and large-scale strategy in fluid conditions, as opposed to military history.

As Ingrid walked over to the training grounds with the rest of her new class, as she selected a training lance to spar with and Edelgard swiftly caught her eye, she thought that if the rest of the year could have been like that, she would have been happy.

-

Once upon a time, there was a lord’s daughter—a lady, we suppose. Long had she been tied down with chains she could not see, chains whose rattle and incessant clamor she could not hear, chains whose weight she was cognizant of, but whose origin she could not place. She had ever walked with her head held high, trying to do everything that was asked of her with dignity and fortitude, despite the fact that the chains were sometimes so heavy that every step she took was a tremendous strain.

She was awake to them, now. She knew they were there, knew that these chains that were binding on her were not binding on any other member of her family. She walked chained, she lived with the expectation of having to sacrifice, and sacrifice greatly, sacrifice of her own flesh, while those on whose behalf she was supposed to sacrifice were expected to sacrifice nothing. She had not shaken off the chains, not quite yet, but she could feel them start to flake away with rust, and what rusts must weaken.

-

Of course, the land did not quiet down. Of course it didn’t. That would have been entirely too much to ask.

Fódlan remained gripped by turmoil in the coming months. Ingrid had the distinct displeasure of witnessing some of that turmoil up close when they were sent to Remire Village, afflicted, burning, convulsing, dying, dead. The monastery librarian turned out to be at the center of the bloody massacre, and considering how often the Church turned out to be at or close to be the center of every woe that troubled Fódlan in these times, Ingrid could not say that she was surprised.

Truly, she was beginning to see that the Church of Seiros was involved to some greater or lesser extent with everything that went wrong in Fódlan. The most glaring example was the fiasco with the Western Church, but the Central Church had also inserted itself into the prosecution of those deemed to have some involvement with the massacre of the king’s party in Duscur. They had inserted themselves into the situation regarding Miklan’s theft of the Lance of Ruin, as well—Sylvain had told her that the Archbishop had threatened to confiscate the lance if the situation was not resolved quickly enough for her liking, leaving Gautier territory without the most potent weapon against incursions from Sreng that it possessed. And weren’t there so many stories of lordships without heirs, and instead of allowing the local overlord to decide the matter, the Church would inject itself into that as well, insisting that _they_ choose the candidate who would fill that vacant post.

The Church controlled the borders of Fódlan, forever preaching that to have too much contact with the outside world would corrupt the hearts of the faithful. The Church controlled what trade goods from the outside world could be legally obtained in Fódlan. Ingrid knew of certain mechanical devices that had been banned on the grounds of their existence violating the teachings of Seiros, though Ingrid knew not what those devices were meant to accomplish, nor which of Seiros’s teachings they were supposed to have violated.

The Church controlled what books the people of Fódlan read, deeming many to be sinful and corrupt, though given the expansive range of books forbidden and their disparate topics, Ingrid had never quite figured out what made a book “sinful.” She had once watched Seteth pile recent donations to the library on a car, watched how little time he took perusing any of the books before making his decision, and then he would signal for a guard to take that cart away, to parts unknown. What was to be done with the books was equally unknown, but Ingrid thought of knowledge, of _stories_ vanishing out of the world forever, and her heart ached.

The Church killed suspected criminals without trial, when it suited them. The Church killed children, when it suited them.

The Insurrection of the Seven, the abduction of one of the emperor’s children, and the subsequent, or maybe concurrent, disappearances and presumed death of the emperor’s other ten children, that was something the Central Church had not interfered in. They’d not gone sticking their noses into the rebellion, instead letting the Empire fight it out amongst themselves.

But even that bothered Ingrid. House Hresvelg was of the bloodline of Seiros, and had ruled in the name of Seiros since the days of Wilhelm I. That the Central Church would simply allow House Hresvelg to be stripped of much of its practical power and its emperor made into a puppet for his ministers’ pleasures, without so much as a token protest, was baffling. That they would not intervene as the emperor’s children, as much a part of the bloodline of Seiros as their father, were dropping off the face of the earth, never to be seen again, was bizarre—and damning. Of all the things the Central Church chose to take no interest in, the disappearance and murder of the children who shared the blood of the divine Seiros? What was more, ignoring the abduction and whatever had happened to her to leave those scars and her hair color altered, of the sole surviving heir?

So the Church of Seiros could go out of its way to order the death of a child, but could not exert itself to save one?

Ingrid’s impression of the Church of Seiros was increasingly that of a collection of officials who couldn’t decide if they would rather interfere in things that were none of their business, to no good end, or if they would rather ignore things that could definitely be argued to be their business, to no good end. When she tried to reach into her memory to think of good they had done, she could name a few minor acts, but nothing that benefited society as a whole. To society as a whole, of late the Church of Seiros had been rather more like a carrion-crow, foretelling bad fortune and picking at the bones once the bodies were rotting on the blood-soaked ground. This was not how the Church ought to be. This was not how anyone should be.

So long as Ingrid dwelled in the Church of Seiros’s greatest stronghold, she supposed it would be prudent to keep her tongue from wagging. There were knights and guards and priests and nuns and monks pretty much everywhere you turned, and Ingrid knew just how much the Archbishop appreciated criticism.

That was fine. The way her life was going, Ingrid suspected she would never be fully satisfied with the Church’s governance. She only had to look at the way Edelgard’s jaw tightened whenever she or someone within her hearing spoke of the way the Archbishop chose to rule from her stronghold of Garreg Mach to know that Edelgard was far from enamored of the style of the Church’s rule, and knowing Edelgard’s uncompromising ideals, doubtless _she_ would never be happy with it.

One day, the full extent of the rot would be exposed. Ingrid hoped she would be alive to see it happen; what was more, she hoped she would yet be young and hale enough to be part of the process of cutting the rot out, so that new growth could takes its place, if there was even enough to salvage that they would not have to throw the whole thing away.

Ingrid hoped they would not have to throw the whole thing away. If for no other reason than because she thought it would hurt Mercedes and Marianne to have to live their lives without the comfort they derived from their faith, Ingrid hoped they would not have to throw the whole thing away. But given how long the rot had to have been spreading, she suspected what would grow up after it was excised would look very different, indeed.

-

Once upon a time, there was a dragon who pretended that she was a human woman, for fear of ghosts long since vanished from the world, and what mischief their memory might yet do. But this is not her story, though that, she refused to accept. One day, she would try to rewrite the ending. One day, she would try to wrest the inkwell and the quill away from the hands of its rightful owners, and failing that, set the world on fire in her rage, so that no more stories could come of any inkwell or any quill. She was something of the past, and could not accept that her day was done.

But this is not her story.

-

_Rot, rot, I thought of rot?_ Ingrid wondered wildly. Her hands were shaking and her legs shaking and her mouth was full of a scream that she knew it to be no use to scream, for her scream would have been lost in the cacophony of tens of hundreds, maybe tens of _thousands_ of screams as the night sky was filled with fire and the baleful glare of enormous, hate-filled eyes. _I was thinking of rot when I_ should _have been thinking of monsters!_

She had seen the truth for what it was, and the sight could not be taken back. She had seen it, the terrible vision, all the more terrible for the reality of it: for over a thousand years, the land had been governed in secret by a monster, a creature not at all unlike the Demonic Beasts that had spilled from the abandoned chapel months ago, but someone who could change her form at will, someone who never died, someone who ruled over the land and bore a terrible, overpowering hatred for every last one of her subjects.

Ingrid knew what rulers did to people whom they hated, as Rhea—as that _creature_ , hated the people of Fódlan. She had seen it happen, had smelled the blood and watched the smoke choke the sky, as clearly as though she had been there herself. History was full of examples, but Ingrid did not have to reach back even ten years for hers.

It could not be allowed to happen again.

-

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

-

Edelgard caught her arm as they strode away from the battlefield they had made of a holy place, her grip firm, but not so tight that Ingrid could not have freed her arm, had she been so inclined.

“Will you follow me now?” Edelgard asked of her, her low voice thrumming with urgency. “You have seen the truth. Will you still follow me?”

-

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wished to be a knight.

-

The words fell from her mouth, as quick and as sure as anything she had ever said in her life: “I will.”

-

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

Once upon a

Once upon

Once

-

Ingrid received another letter from her father yesterday, so quick on the heels of the last that she had to wonder what promises or threats must drive the messenger. It was astonishingly quick, considering the long miles, winding roads, and treacherous conditions on the journey between Galatea territory and Enbarr. Ingrid thought she would do with this letter what she had done with the last one. She’d been given a sizeable chest for her belongings when they had finally reached Enbarr, where they enjoyed some measure of safety, and there was a back-corner laden by clothes and by books that was perfect for things she did not want to read.

Perhaps one day, Ingrid would open both of those letters in turn, and read them. When the day came when she thought the words had no more power to hurt her, she would read them, and perhaps she would reflect on the world that once was. Perhaps she would miss it.

Somehow, Ingrid did not think she would miss the present world. The world that Edelgard sought to forge—the world that Ingrid would aid her in forging—would be a far more equitable one. Born in pain, as all things were, and sometimes Ingrid thought about the _amount_ of pain and shivered, but once it was fully-formed, it would be a world where no one had to fear what she had feared. It would be a world where no one expected abduction and rape and impregnation and impregnation and impregnation just because they happened to bear a Crest. Ingrid would not miss the world where this had happened often enough as to become a cautionary tale to keep girls (or, more rarely, boys) from straying too far from their parents’ protection. She would not miss that world at all.

If they could create a new world, Ingrid would do whatever was necessary to ensure that it was born. She would stand by the midwife, ready to render whatever aid was asked of her, would play nurse and protector, guarding the newborn world for as long as it took for it to become strong enough to stand on its own. She would feed it blood to nourish it and grind bones to make its bread. And perhaps, in the end, she would be feeding it her blood and grinding up her bones for its bread, but if she could make it stronger…

Of course, that new world would be vulnerable for a long time yet, and it would be beset by countless foes. How many people feared and hated change, that they would obliterate any hope for a better tomorrow, just so that nothing in their lives would have to change? And there was the matter of the creature who had spent centuries pulling the strings, holding the reins of power in her iron grip. _She_ would surely smash to pieces every possible world that was not entirely under her own power, if she was allowed to do so.

Once the war was won, the real work would begin. Not as glorious as battlefield victories, perhaps, but, if they were to create a world future generations would be safe and happy living in, far, far more important.

If Ingrid could only live to see it, she would be happy.

But one thing at a time.

It was still so early when Ingrid left the chapel on the palace grounds—the bell in the nearby tower striking five had been her signal to rise and to leave—but the hour felt later than that, for the sky was only now beginning to lighten. A few stars were still hung in the sky, but most had winked out, speeding out of sight until their gentle night returned to them. The eastern horizon was now painted with a delicate rosy hue, drenching the rooftops with the presage of dawn. Soon, Enbarr would come alive, in the cacophony of sights and sounds and smells Ingrid was still growing accustomed to.

At this time of morning, at this time of year, the sun would already be out over the lands of the Kingdom. In Galatea territory, if Ailell was feeling especially fitful, night might yet be found, reeking clouds of smoke snuffing out the sun for several hours yet. But in Enbarr, it was five in the morning, the skies were clear, and the sun was on the cusp of rising.

This was the furthest Ingrid had ever been from home.

As she walked back to the palace, Ingrid wondered if she would ever see it again.

Approaching the palace, Ingrid’s stomach fluttered, her pulse beginning to pick up speed. How many times had she dreamed of a moment such as this, when she was a child? How many times had such a moment seemed the culmination of her every want and dream? How many times had the imagining of such an event filled her with ecstatic joy?

She was still happy, but not drunk with the kind of ecstatic joy that could make sober men lose their heads, and sober women lose their grasp on reality. Her happiness was pierced through with something bitter, thorns she had anticipated, thorns she felt she could live with, thorns that stung her, nonetheless.

In the Kingdom, those on the cusp of being knighted wore three robes, each layered over top of each other. Closest to the skin was rough, white wool, symbolizing purity. The second layer was fine, blue wool, symbolizing fidelity in personal affairs and loyalty to their liege lord (Prospective knights from the wealthiest families wore robes of deep, rich blue, but lighter shades were also accepted for poorer knights). The top layer was yellow silk, for the sun, symbolizing that a knight would only act ‘in the daylight’—that they would ever act with honor (If silk could not be afforded or obtained, linen would do).

In the Empire, prospective knights only wore two layers of robes. The lower layer was white, also symbolizing purity, but also, Ferdinand had told her, signifying a ‘blank slate,’ in that the future was open to them, and that by their actions it could be fashioned into any shape under the sun. The top layer was a sleeveless red surcoat, the red of blood, of valor, and of the willingness to be injured in defense of their liege lord (No one had ever felt the need to single out that last part in the Kingdom; it had always simply been tacitly understood). Both layers were of a light, almost springy material that Dorothea had told her was something called ‘cotton.’ It felt strange against Ingrid’s skin.

Her family would never see this. Her parents would never have been happy to see her as a knight—they would have balked at the idea of a martial career, one that could have put her child-bearing capabilities or her life at risk. But Ingrid could guess how much unhappier it would make them to learn that she had become a knight of the Empire, when the Kingdom and the Empire were at war. The prospect of a potential advantageous marriage to an Imperial nobleman would have paled in comparison to the reality of the battle lines.

Her grandmother could very well take ill and die, long before the war was over.

Ingrid could face her older brothers in battle.

Ingrid might never see her younger brother again, or else, the next time they met, he could be a grown man who had been raised to despise her as a traitor to their homeland, and as the selfish sister who had rejected her role as the tool by which their noble house would achieve wealth and prosperity.

She might never go home again.

So yes, hers was not ecstatic joy. Hers was not pure happiness. But Ingrid did not want to be pure. To be pure was to be one thing, forever, and to never change, never accept anything that could so much as _suggest_ change. The dead were pure. So, too, were the tombs and graves in which they were kept. The teachings of the Church of Seiros were pure, for they never changed and their enforcer ordered the violent death of all who might seek to change them.

What was impure had the capacity to change, to love, to flourish. Ingrid would sooner be impure. She would sooner take the thorns than have a heart impervious to them, because it was so hard that nothing could touch it at all.

The throne room was dark, but then, the throne room had been dark every time Ingrid had been inside of it. Not for the first time, she spared a moment to wonder _why_. Oh, certainly, you wouldn’t want the room to get too hot, not when it was going to be primarily occupied by people in layers of heavy clothing, but why there were so few windows, and why they were so small, Ingrid could not imagine. Perhaps if the palace was just the same as it had been in the days of the War of Heroes, it would have made more sense, but Ingrid had learned since coming here that this was _not_ the original structure. The original palace had been gutted by fire some six hundred years ago; it had been rebuilt, and then, in the way of old buildings, it had been continuously repaired and improved upon, until there were likely none of the original stones left. In the centuries of improvements, you would think that some emperor, some time, would have decided they wanted more natural light in the throne room, and damn the advisors cautioning against assassins and snipers.

The throne room possessed little natural light, consisting of coal gray stone polished to a watery glimmer. Its windows were few, and framed by thick, dark curtains that even from a distance Ingrid could tell to be sun-stained. Perhaps she would always be curious about what whim or directive had caused the room to be so dark and poorly-lit, but that was of no import in this moment.

In this moment, the throne room stood lit by a hundred candles, burning merrily in shining gold stands, giving the whole room the warm, hazy glow of a pleasant dream. The room might be dark, gathering shadows even when every curtain was thrown back and efforts were made to light every corner, but on this day, a special effort had been made to give light to a place that accumulated so many shadows. Ingrid could not help but mark it. She knew it had been done for her benefit.

And there, in the center of all of those candles, standing at the foot of the dais where sat her throne, clad in full armor and swathed with a crimson cloak that brushed against the floor, was Edelgard.

She could have been a dream, a golden phantasm conjured by a fevered mind, but Ingrid knew better. There was nothing dreamlike about Edelgard. Bold and impetuous and possessed of the vision to free the world from its poisonous stasis, Edelgard could never have been conjured by a dream. She could only have ever been a blessing to the waking world. Ingrid did not think her dreaming imagination could ever have conjured something like her.

In the Kingdom, when a hopeful was knighted by the king or by their liege lord, or even by another knight, there were witnesses. In the Kingdom, knighthood with no witnesses to the act of knighting was considered dubious, at best. There could be, and sometimes had been, challenges to a knight’s claim to the title based on the fact that there were no witnesses when the knight received their spurs and the title of ‘sir.’

When Glenn was knighted, Ingrid was present in her capacity as his betrothed. The whole royal court had been present to watch King Lambert induct a new member into the Kingdom knighthood. But the imperial court was absent. To an extent, Ingrid understood it—Edelgard’s ministers were either under house arrest, dead, or alive and free, but rather markedly _not_ in her favor. That the other members of the Empire’s royal court were not present was a sign, perhaps, of how different things were in the Empire. Or perhaps it had been done at Edelgard’s insistence.

There was a part of Ingrid that very much hoped it had been at Edelgard’s insistence.

“So, you have returned,” Edelgard intoned, the golden horns of her crown catching the light as she inclined her head, glittering like they had caught the starry firmament within. “You have completed your vigil. Standing before me, have you any doubts? Know you any reason by which your knighthood might be voided in the future?”

The formula wasn’t exactly the same as what was employed in the Kingdom, but it was close. Besides that, Ferdinand had gone over it with her, just to make sure that none of it would be a surprise. Ingrid knew how to respond. 

“I have no such doubts,” Ingrid replied confidently, her tongue stepping over well-trodden words. “I am ready.”

The faintest hint of a smile ghosted over Edelgard’s solemn face, before she beckoned for Ingrid to come closer. “Very well. Step forward, Ingrid Brandl Galatea, and speak truly.”

Ingrid took a knee before the ruler of the Adrestian Empire, staring up into her face. There was a scar under her chin, a pale, delicate line invisible from any angle but this, and though it was slight and faded, Ingrid knew just where it had come from. Ingrid set her jaw. Even had she come before Edelgard with any doubts, the sight of that scar would have banished them from her mind.

“You come before me to swear the vows of a knight of the Adrestian Empire. Very well. Ingrid…” Her voice softened slightly. “Do you swear to serve your liege lord faithfully and valiantly?”

Knowing who Ingrid’s liege lord would be, that was hardly a question, hardly a question at all. “I swear.”

“Do you swear always to keep your promises?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to always speak with honesty, offering honest counsel to your allies and honest negotiations with your adversaries?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to give aid to widows and orphans?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to protect the weak?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to fight for the welfare of the Empire at large?”

“I swear.”

Edelgard nodded once more. “Very well.”

In the Kingdom, there would have been an additional vow to swear: _do you swear to respect and uphold the honor of women?_ It seemed almost laughable to Ingrid, though she knew exactly why it had been put in place. And there was another vow, sworn in both the Kingdom, and the Empire, that was missing from this litany:

_Do you swear to uphold the teachings of the Church of Seiros, and prosecute war against all its enemies?_

But Ingrid was hardly surprised that that vow had not made it into Edelgard’s questions, today.

Edelgard drew her sword, a delicate rapier that shone as if made of moonlight instead of steel. “In my capacity as emperor, I, Edelgard von Hresvelg, confer the duties and the honors of imperial knighthood upon Ingrid Brandl Galatea.” The flat of her blade lit on Ingrid’s right shoulder. “May you walk in justice.” The blade lifted, to rest, ever so lightly, upon Ingrid’s left shoulder. There was a tenderness to it that surpassed every embrace Ingrid had ever enjoyed. That they were alone made it feel almost as if it could have been an embrace. “May you walk in truth.” Edelgard sheathed her sword, moonlight vanishing beneath a leather scabbard. “May you one day walk in peace,” she said softly, her voice laden down with something like wistfulness.

She extended a hand to Ingrid, then. Ingrid took it, drawing it to her mouth, lips brushing against metal. She felt a quivering frisson as the cold of the steel seeped beneath her skin, something she wished she could have suppressed, something she wished could have lasted forever.

A shadow passed over Ingrid then, a raincloud to dampen the happiness of this day. Would it always be like this? Would she be forever wanting that which must remain out of her reach? Ingrid sought out her reflection in the polished steel of Edelgard’s gauntlet, but found nothing there but red. No trace of her was to be found in what presaged the bloody war they were to wage.

Edelgard squeezed her hand gently before unexpectedly and unceremoniously hauling her to her feet. Ingrid’s stomach fluttered madly as Edelgard smiled at her, satisfied and oddly intent. “And it’s done.”

Ingrid sighed, a jittery smile curling over her own mouth. “And we still have so much more work to do.”

“Indeed.” Still holding Ingrid’s hand, Edelgard began to lead her away from the dais. “But let us break our fast first.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “Though given what is on the agenda for today, I fear the food may sour in our stomachs.”

Ingrid laughed, startled. “Is it that bad?”

“It’s bad enough.”

Ingrid had never found her reflection in Edelgard’s gauntlet. But when she looked into her eyes, her pale, clear eyes, she found herself there. She did not see a stalwart knight. She did not see a steadfast lady. She did not see a quivering, uncertain girl who could never hope to be either. Difficult to describe, but when she looked into Edelgard’s eyes, Ingrid saw herself. For good and for ill, she saw only herself, with no expectations laid to bear upon her shoulders.

Still talking, hands still clasped, they left the throne room behind them.

-

Once upon a time, there was an emperor lowering herself out of a tower, and there was a girl who bore the arms of a knight. Together, they would forge a path to a future kinder than the past they had lived. The path would drip with blood and tears and the questions of what opportunities had been lost, what other paths had been closed forever. But wherever the path took them, they walked it, laying down the stones as they went.

This was not a fairytale; no one had ever promised simple answers, let alone simple questions. But as long as their hearts were with the path, they would walk it together, never questioning the rightness of their cause.

Change required sacrifice. No change came without pain. For the sake of a brighter, kinder future, they would walk in shadow for a while, so that those who came after them would ever feel the sun upon them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all my lovely readers: thank you so much for sticking around to the end. When I started writing this, I actually thought it was going to be a oneshot, but we all know what came of that.


End file.
